


tumblr prompts

by foxmagpie



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Blowjobs, Car Sex, Desk Sex, Drunk Sex, F/M, Fluff, Jealous!Beth, Jealous!Rio, Jealousy, Masturbation, Rio's Sisters, Sexual Fantasy, Stakeout, Vibrators, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-01-20 22:15:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 38,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21289025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie
Summary: A collection of short fics/drabbles/oneshots/headcanons/etc. from Tumblr prompts or asks.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Dean Boland, Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 265
Kudos: 656





	1. don't look

**Author's Note:**

> _[Prompt #6 “DON’T LOOK!!”](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/188776597822/prompt-6-dont-look-liiiiike-maybe-a) Liiiiike, maybe a situation where Rio shows up announced, as he does, and Beth is literally fresh out of the shower and in a towel?_
> 
> Set after 2x06 and before 2x07.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Tags: Fantasies, Post-2x06, Masturbation, Teasing

When Beth wakes up, it takes her a moment to remember why she feels so dirty. There’s a sheen of sweat covering her entire body, and she smacks her lips together, wetting the dryness in her mouth.

Beth turns to look at the clock. It’s already past 8 am—she’s slept late. The kids and Dean are gone already, off to school, off for errands, and Beth’s thankful she has the day off. She hadn’t slept very well. She’d only slipped into real sleep maybe two hours ago, tossing and turning before that, fantasizing what comes next with Rio, dreading what comes next with Dean.

She can’t believe she’d slept with him last night. She’d come home from meeting with Rio at Boland Motors, having wrestled 50% of his pill business from him, feeling elated and… frustrated.

And Dean had been there, and he’d finally, finally picked up his slack, and she’d figured maybe he could help scratch the itch Rio had triggered with that lascivious leer and, well, she’d been wrong. It had been so long since the two of them had been together, she’d nearly forgotten what it was like. When she’d slept with Rio, she’d known it had been an almost comical contrast—as if there were no two points of comparison between the two men—but she’d forgotten what it felt like to have Dean’s boorish hands palming at her face, what the sound of his wet breaths sounded like panting against her ear. It had ended with the familiar feeling of simultaneous relief and disappointment that it was over so soon, without her ever coming close to finishing herself…

Beth sighs, stretches her arms into the air, and sits up. She doesn’t know what she expected. She doesn’t know why she thought she could substitute one with the other, why she even believed she might be able to get lost in her own thoughts, imagining Rio bending her over the desk while Dean had bent her over the kitchen sink. No, she had been painfully aware who was moving against her, whose hands were roaming her body callously.

Beth rolls out of her bed and makes her way to her en suite, ready to rinse herself off and start fresh. Only she had never really been sated last night, had never really scratched the itch. So after a moment’s hesitation, she walks back to her bedside table, thankful she’d spent a little bit of extra money to get the waterproof vibrator.

* * *

Beth has another fantasy now, which is good. That’s not to say that any of the old ones have started becoming ineffective—she regularly cycles through imagining Rio fucking her on top of the breakfast dishes, remembering Rio fucking her against the bathroom wall, envisioning him smashing things up with a crow bar—but it’s nice to have some variety.

The water is nearly scalding against her skin as she imagines what it might have been like if she’d hiked herself up onto the desktop. Rio would have stepped between her legs, would have maybe spread them wider, would maybe have even kissed her. It wouldn’t be soft, no. Hard and punishing, his teeth sinking into her lips—and she would bite back.

She’d show him that she’s not afraid of him, show him that she can keep up with him, show him that she could take it rough.

The memory of him inside her is so visceral, it’s easy to conjure it up—but she feels empty and needy and desperate for him now, alone in the shower, the buzz of the vibrator dulling as she presses it harder against her clit.

She’d have dug her nails into his back, have maybe insisted on him taking off some of his clothes this time—but she’d deny him when he went to unbutton her dress. She’d bat his hand away, tell him no, just because she could.

Eventually, she lets the fantasy mutate so that Rio now has her bent over the desk, his hand firm as he presses against the back of her neck so that her body is flush against the wood as he thrusts into her from behind. They would have been reckless and careless, she knows, and she imagines how Dean’s old pen cup would crash to the floor, spilling its contents across the carpet as Rio got her off without even using his hands.

She’d taunt him, maybe. Through breathy moans, she’d tell him she would have taken 40% at the exact moment that he spilled into her. She pictures his face, that hard angry line of his mouth, those narrowed eyes that had just realized he’d lost—that she’d _won. _

Since nobody’s home, Beth doesn’t bother to muffle her moans. And she spoils herself a bit, firmly pressing the vibrator in little circles against her clit through not one, not two, but _three_ orgasms, thinking she deserves it after her performance—and restraint—last night. Her fingers flex against the shower tile as she leans against it for support, breathing heavy and trying to come down after the last one.

When Beth rings out her hair and steps out of the shower, she finally feels somewhat sated—Dean’s far from her mind, she no longer feels hungry for Rio, and now she can focus on business.

Wrapping herself in a towel, Beth rinses and washes her vibrator. She steps back out into her bedroom—only she’s not alone.

Rio’s there, standing casually in front of her dresser, rifling through her jewelry box, as if he has a right to be there. He doesn’t even look up at her.

Beth flushes, knowing he must have heard her, knowing he knows that she was just getting herself off in the shower. She curls her fingers tightly around the vibrator, hiding it, and tries very hard to keep her voice steady as she asks, “What are you doing here?”

Rio smirks, still not looking at her, still poking around her rings and necklaces. She has no idea what he’s doing.

“Leave my things alone,” she scolds.

“Funny, comin’ from you.” Rio turns his neck to look at her now, and he takes his time trailing his eyes up and down Beth’s body. Water’s dripping off her legs, and from her hair it falls in rivulets down her chest and disappears into her cleavage. Rio wets his bottom lip, and there’s a gleam in his eyes which tells her he’s both amused and satisfied to find her like this.

“Don’t look!” she commands, scandalized, tightening her towel around her with her free hand. Feeling heat pool low in her belly, Beth realizes that she’s _not_ sated, she’s _not_ ready to think only of business—not at all.

“Seems a li’l late to act prude,” Rio says, shrugging, but Beth can see a smile playing at his lips as he turns away from her and plucks a plain silver ring out of her box. He studies it in the light. Beth furrows her brow, confused, until he slides her ring onto his pinky finger.

“Excuse me?” she challenges, taking three long steps toward him. “What are you doing?”

Rio glances over at her again, eyebrows shooting up at her nearness. “Thought you liked finalizin’ deals with an exchange of jewelry, yeah?”

“I don’t know what you’re—” Beth begins to protest weakly. _The pearls._ Her words trail off into nothing. She hasn’t thought of the necklace in ages, had never really considered what he’d done with it, finds herself confused, now, thinking of him holding onto it. She shifts her weight. She thinks of him snatching her panties off the dirty bathroom floor. “You’ve got a thing for keepsakes,” she says, almost accusatory.

“Mmm.” It’s not quite an agreement, more of a bored acknowledgment. He sucks his lower lip into his teeth, then turns and steps into her space so that they’re toe-to-toe, face-to-face. Beth sucks in a breath. “And you got a thing for bathrooms.”

Rio’s eyes shift to the en suite door behind them and back to her. Beth blushes bright, and an image from her fantasy flashes into her head: Beth sitting on the desk; Rio looking down at her just like this; Rio stepping between her knees and sliding his hand up her leg, pushing her dress up around her hips before dipping his fingers down into her panties.

Beth swallows. She desperately wants to graze her lips against his, to reach out and press her palm against his chest, for him to lift her up and onto the dresser and then—

Beth’s palm is sweaty and she squeezes the vibrator in her hand, desperate to keep it out of Rio’s sight.

“You got no idea…” Rio says softly, reaching up and pushing her wet bangs off her face.

Beth’s tongue darts out to her lips, moistening them. “What?” she asks weakly.

“How busy you about to be.” Rio digs his hand into his pocket, and then he reaches to uncurl her fingers around her vibrator, stuffing something into her hand. “Here’s your schedule, mama. Hope you’re ready to keep up.”

Beth looks down, and Rio follows her gaze. They both see his note and the bright pink of her toy tucked into her palm. Beth snaps her hand closed around it again, and Rio looks at her, eyes bright. He’s got a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Have fun,” he says, voice low and gravelly. And then he turns on his heel and walks out the french doors.


	2. get your hands off me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> siiiiaah asked: [Brio Get your hands off of me!” “I need help.” Get out!”](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/187137951242/brio-get-your-hands-off-of-me-i-need-help)
> 
> Beth & Rio get caught by Stan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an old one, but it's being moved to AO3 now with slight edits :)

If you had asked Beth Boland a year ago whether she would ever dare to have sex in public, she would have given an emphatic _no_. She wouldn’t even hesitate—the answer would be out of her mouth before you’d even finished asking the question. ****

Then again, if you had asked Beth Boland a year ago whether she would ever seduce a violent gangbanger with a neck tattoo in a grimy bar bathroom while her husband sat outside settling up the bill…

Well.

It just goes to show that a lot can change in a year.

It’s not a _frequent_ thing, per se, it’s just that by the time that Harry’s 7th birthday party rolls around, Beth and Rio have already gotten down and dirty in the van during one of Marcus’s soccer tournaments, in a supply closet at a PTA banquet, and in Rio’s childhood bedroom on Easter.

When Rio leans over to whisper something filthy in Beth’s ear while Ruby cuts the cake, Beth still blushes crimson, acting scandalized—but that’s all part of the fun, isn’t it? The way Rio can rile her up and make her practically _vibrate_ with nervous energy at the same time that he knows her hands will be all over him the second she gets a chance? 

He likes that. He likes that _a lot._

Still, Beth’s somewhat shocked when, an hour later, he slips into the bathroom behind her and fumbles with the lock.

“What are you doing?” she hisses. “Not _here_.”

“No?” Rio asks, mock surprised. 

“Everyone’s here,” she insists. The other times they’d been together it’d been _acquaintances_ that might catch them, or _his_ family—not _hers_. Ruby’s entire family was here, of course, but also her own kids—Annie—Sadie—too many people that it would positively kill her to be caught by. 

“Thought that was part of the fun,” he says, shrugging. “If you’re sure, though—”

Rio reaches for the door handle, and before she knows what she’s doing, she says, “Wait—”

It’s just—he’s been shooting her these _looks_ all night, and he’s had Marcus for the past two weeks while his mom's been on vacation, and they haven’t seen each other much, and—

And, well, frankly, Beth just _likes_ the idea of him fucking her, holding his hand against her mouth to stifle her cries, even if it terrifies her just as much as it excites her.

Rio whips back around to face her, a smug smile on his face, and Beth rolls her eyes.

“Quickly, though?” Beth insists, pressing against the counter and lifting up her dress for him.

“Damn, ma,” Rio teases, standing still and taking her in. “Whatever happened to _romance_?”

“Who wants to play Twister?” Beth can hear Ruby call from the living room, and cheers and screams erupt from a gaggle of children. Good—that can be a pretty noisy game. That should help.

“Just—do you want to do this or not?” Beth asks, slightly embarrassed that she’s just displaying her ass for him while he pretends to need convincing. The question only flames the fire of Rio’s dickishness, though. _Of course._

“I dunno, ma. You bein’ a li’l demandin’. Maybe **I need help** gettin’ in the _mood_,” he says, grin devilish. 

“Help yourself,” Beth huffs, throwing her dress back down—only that’s all Rio needs to give up the game and to pin her against the counter, trailing kisses along her neck.

Rio’s cock is already half-hard and he presses it against her ass. By the time he snakes his hand into her panties, she’s wet for him. He tears the little silk red number off of her so that the panties pool on the floor around her ankles, and the pace and thrusts of his fingers are relentless. Beth’s trying very hard not to moan—which just means that Rio uses his palm to grind against her clit at the same time that he sinks his teeth into her shoulder.

“Make noise for me, mama,” he purrs.

Beth’s breaths are ragged, but she refuses to get any louder than the little whines she’s already emitting against her will.

“You gonna come for me?” Rio asks her roughly, and Beth nods, gritting her teeth, and Rio abruptly _stops_. 

Beth’s eyes flutter open and she sees him looking at her with a dark look in the mirror.

“What—”

“You ain’t comin’ until you makin’ noise,” Rio promises.

_Asshole_.

“_Rio_,” Beth pants.

“Elizabeth.”

Beth swallows thickly. Dimly, she can hear the sounds of Twister happening fifty feet down the hall from them—the laughter and the whining of kids who have already lost. 

This game is dangerous, but Rio has helped her to realize the best things in life usually are. 

“Touch me,” she breathes.

“You beggin’, darlin’?”

He expects her to say _no_, but Beth blushes, giving him a little nod. This drives Rio wild enough to undo his belt and yank his own pants down so that he can push into her with one swift motion. She grips her hands hard against the countertop as he slams into her, and now it really _is_ difficult for Beth to manage the sounds spilling out of her throat, low and guttural and _divine_.

Very distantly, far enough away that it seems like it’s in another world, Beth hears a crash and commotion. 

Rio reaches around her to cover her mouth with his hand, and Beth can see her pupils are blown in the mirror as she watches him fuck her—and that’s when the bathroom door swings open and she makes eye contact with _Stan_ in the reflection of the glass.

“Oh, shit,” Stan says, dumbfounded, his eyes darting to her silk undies on his bathroom floor, the bare thighs of Rio pressed against the bare ass of Beth, Rio’s hand covering half of Beth’s face so that only her big, shocked bambi eyes are left for Stan to settle on focusing on.

Rio has the audacity to _laugh_, and Stan gapes, blinking rapidly, rooted to the spot.

“**Get out**!” Beth cries, but it’s muffled by Rio’s hand. 

“There was a fall,” Stan says dumbly. “We need a bandaid—”

Beth rips Rio’s fingers off her mouth. “_Get out_!”

“Right,” Stan says, and he turns on his heel, slamming the door behind him.

“I thought you locked the door!” Beth hisses to Rio, who is still _inside of her. _

“Me too,” Rio shrugs, unbothered. He squeezes her hip. “Well, we already caught, so we may as well finish—”

“**Get your hands off me**!” Beth demands. 

Rio slips out of her and reaches down to help slide her panties back up to her hips, but he’s biting back a grin at the same time that Beth is biting back her absolute, bone-deep mortification.

Beth knows, intrinsically, that Stan took in _every detail _of what he saw, and she knows Stan is going to tell Ruby—and he’s not going to give the Sparknotes version. Stan and Ruby tell each other _everything_. Stan’s going to provide details. _Lots_ of details.

And Ruby? Ruby’s not going to be able to keep this to herself—Annie will know in no time, and then? Well, then, Beth might as well just burst into flames because Annie? Annie is _never_ going to let her live this down.

“What are we going to tell people?” Beth cries, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Oh, I got it,” Rio says, snapping his fingers as if he’s come up with a plan, but Beth doesn’t trust the amusement in his voice. “Just tell ‘em we was playin’ our own game of Twister.”

* * *

“Where’s the bandaid, Stan?” Ruby asks impatiently, hand held out waiting for him to deposit it. One of Harry’s little friends is propped up on the island in front of her. Tyson has a minor cut on his chin from a spill in Twister—somehow, Jane Boland’s _teeth_ had gotten him.

Stan opens the packaging and drops the bandaid into her open palm. Very slowly, eyes wide with emphasis Ruby doesn’t understand, he says, “I had to get it from _our_ bathroom.”

“Okaaay?” Ruby says, eyes darting to him, trying to convey to him that she’s not following. “And?”

As she presses the bandage onto Tyson’s cut, Stan says suggestively, in a way that only other adults could understand, “The hall bathroom was _occ—cu—pied_.”

“_Excuse me?_” Ruby asks incredulously, hands flying to cover Tyson’s ears even though he couldn’t possibly be picking up what Stan was laying down. “_Who _is in there?”

“_Beth_. And _her_ friend.”

“Mrs. Hill?” Tyson asks. “Can I get down now?”

Ruby shakes herself back to the present and lifts Tyson by the armpits to help him drop back down to the floor.

When Tyson’s little feet patter from the kitchen tile to the wooden floors of the living room, Ruby spins to Stan with a hand on her hip and asks, “Beth _Boland?_ Beth Boland, as in blushes-when-you-even-say-the-word-‘penis’-Beth-Boland?”

“That’s the one,” Stan agrees.

“You’re telling me _that_ girl was getting dicked down in our _bathroom_ during our son’s birthday party?”

“Yeah, baby,” Stan says nodding eagerly.

“_Spill_,” Ruby demands, eyes wide, smile gleeful as she leans forward and slams her hands onto the counter. “Spare no detail.”

“Okay,” Stan says, rubbing his hands together and stepping towards her so that he can drop his voice lower. “Your girl was bent over the counter, asscheeks _flyin’ _in the wind, baby, and—“

“Dress on? Dress off?” Ruby asks, pointing back and forth as if both options had appeared in thin air before her. “On? Off?”

“On—and skivvies down around her ankles.”

“Oh. My. God. I don’t know if I want to ask but—“

He knows exactly what she’s thinking. “Red. Silk. Little bit of lace.”

“Heheeeee,” Ruby squeals. “What about him?”

“Could only see his thighs below his shirt—did you know the man’s toned? He's got _muscles._”

“I mean, I assumed, but Beth never says a word about him—“ Ruby shakes her head. She can’t _believe _it. “Were they, you know, just getting started or—?”

“Oh, definitely close to finishing,” Stan says, voice almost serious. “He was still in the middle of, you know—“ Stan throws his head back over his shoulder, “—uh, pulling backward when the door opened and—“

“Oh. My. _God_.”

“I know, but that’s not all, baby—“ If possible, Ruby’s eyes flash open even wider. “She was, uh, you know—_loud_—so he had his hand around her mouth!”

“Oh, lord. Did you _hear_ them before you went in?”

“No, I guess he really shut her up—“

Ruby’s eyes dart to the hallway when she hears the door creak open. Stan scurries into the living room, too ashamed to come face-to-face with either of them now.

Beth slinks out, smoothing down the skirt of her dress, pretending nothing is amiss. Ruby stares at her, but Beth just smiles sweetly and pulls the door clicked shut behind her.

_Oh my god_, Ruby thinks. _This bitch is going to make him keep hiding in the bathroom._

“_Beeeeeeeth_,” Ruby says, voice thick with meaning.

“Hi.”

_Oh, Beth is so bad at nonchalance._

“You are _that_ _bitch_.” Ruby whistles, impressed. Beth’s cheeks turn three shades darker instantly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You _are_!”

Beth tries to brush past Ruby to get to the living room, but that’s the moment that Rio chooses to peek his head out of the door—and the jig is up.

“Please don’t tell Annie,” Beth asks, clasping her hands together. Rio laughs from the hallway.

“I cannot believe you are one hundred percent _that bitch_.”


	3. netflix & chill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in the future, Beth overhears Kenny's plans to "Netflix and Chill" with a girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked: [68!](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/187115564452/68)

“**It’s called Netflix and chill for a _reason_**,” Beth insists, walking back into the bedroom from the ensuite, rubbing lotion onto her hands. ****

Rio, already in bed, propped up against the pillows, cocks an eyebrow at her. There’s a slight smirk on his face, but she can see that he’s biting back a full-on mocking smile. “Mhm. And what’s the reason?”

“_Rio_,” Beth says, as if she’s explaining something very obvious. “It’s in the name. You watch Netflix and you hang out, that’s all.”

“Ma, c’mon. You ain’t that outta the loop.”

“What are you talking about?” Beth asks, lip jutting out. 

“Kenny ain’t going to that girl’s house to watch Netflix and _hang out_. Netflix ain’t even gonna be on the background—’less they tryin’ to drown out the noise.”

Beth searches Rio’s face and sees what he’s suggesting Kenny might be up to. Scrunching her nose in horror, Beth cries, “No! He’s too young for that.”

Earlier, when she had dropped off a laundry basket full of folded laundry in Kenny’s room, she’d overheard him talking on that stupid gaming headset with his buddies about how he was going to “Netflix and chill” with some girl named Bella that weekend. She’d started telling Rio about it while they were getting ready for bed, a little bit excited and a little bit sad that Kenny was on the verge of _dating_, and Rio had given her a look of pure pity. 

He’d said, “That ain’t datin’, ma,” and Beth had instantly become indignant. 

Now Rio chuckles, shaking his head, and says, “Not that young, darlin’. He’s older than I was when—”

Beth holds up a hand to stop him, because there is just no way she’s ready to believe that her sixteen-year-old son is ready to even _think_ about sex, let alone have it. 

“I’m just sayin’. It’s time to have the talk with him.” 

“No way,” Beth refutes, pouring some lotion onto the leg she now has propped up on the edge of the bed. She starts rubbing it vigorously into her thigh. “We’ve already had the cursory talk, and he knows to come to me when he’s ready—”

“He ain’t gonna come to you,” Rio interrupts, barking out a laugh. “You kiddin’? He’ll go on the Internet, or if you lucky, he’ll ask his dad. Do you really want him gettin’ advice from Dean? I mean, by all means, if you wanna set him up to disappoint every woman he’s ever gonna—”

“_Rio_,” Beth hisses, face flushing. 

“I’m just sayin’. It’s more than just talkin’ about condoms and pills, ya know? He needs to know to make sure she’s havin’ a good time—the whole time.”

“Oh my god,” Beth groans, mortified just thinking about it all. She sets the bottle of lotion back on the bedside table a little harder than she intends. 

Rio gestures for Beth to crawl into bed with him, and she does, her stomach tight. Are her kids really growing up this fast? She lays her head on his Rio’s chest and he lightly runs his fingers up her arm. 

“I know you ain’t ready for this,” Rio says softly. “But if he is, you just gotta be.”

Beth exhales heavily. He’s right but… _god_, Beth is so uncomfortable talking about sex, _period_. She still clams up when Annie or Ruby share something new they want to try, refusing to admit she’s already tried it herself with Rio. She can’t even have basic conversations with her _best friends_—now she has to imagine talking about sex in-depth with her _son_? She knows it’s part of being a parent, that it’ll be more clinical than the types of conversations she has with the girls, but still.

She’s aware she’s just being a prude, but honestly, she had held some distant hope that this might actually be something Dean could handle. Memories of him pawing at her in high school flood up so quickly, though, that she reluctantly admits to herself that Rio is right. 

“Whatcha thinkin’, mama?” Rio asks, tugging at a strand of her hair to regain her attention. 

“That you’re right, and that I hate it.” Beth sighs. “I’ll do some research tomorrow and—”

“Research? What are you researchin’?” he asks, incredulous. Then he asks, a little lewdly, “What’s out there you ain’t already know about, huh?”

“Stop it,” Beth laughs, pinching some skin on his belly. Rio lets out an involuntary yelp, then presses his lips to the top of her head. “I’m just nervous, and I want to thoroughly prepare for any question he might have.”

Rio bites his lip, hesitates, and then says, “We could do it together. If you want.”

Beth’s eyes widen, and she tries to imagine having a conversation with her son _about_ sex _with_ the person she has sex with, and somehow, it’s worse. 

“I think we would all hate that,” Beth admits. 

Rio laughs under his breath, a little relieved, and then offers, “Well, you could go over the basics, and you could… I dunno… tell him that I’m here if he has any more questions?”

“Really?” Beth asks, looking up at him. She actually thinks Kenny might go for this—Kenny has definitely picked up on the way other women look at Rio out in public, and has even, a few times, asked Rio’s advice about interactions he’s had with girls at school. 

“Yeah. And I’ll, you know, check in with him anyway. Before Friday. Make sure he has an opportunity to ask whatever he’s thinkin’ about.”

Beth beams at him. 

“In the meantime,” Rio says, running dipping his hand into her pajama pants. “I think we oughta refresh ourselves, yeah? And we better try it all, you know, just to be prepared for any questions he might—”

Beth pinches him again, harder, and Rio laughs, but it only lasts a second before he rolls her over and has got her pinned her to the bed, and well. They research well into the night after that.


	4. routine kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked: Hiii! Can I request for this? Also, if its possible, they do it with Annie and Ruby around? Thank you! P.S. I love your stories! [63\. Routine Kisses Where The Other Person Presents Their Cheek/Forehead For The Hello/Goodbye Kiss Without Even Looking Up From What They’re Doing](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/189667642557/hiii-can-i-request-for-this-also-if-its)

**I. Annie**

Despite the fact that Annie knows Beth and Rio are boning on the regular, she doesn’t see much more of him than she did before. He’s at the drops, of course, and he still leers at Beth in that _way _he does—the way that makes Annie more curious than she really should be about her sister’s sex life—but if she didn’t know, she wouldn’t _know_.

Oh, she’d _think _it. She’d _wonder_—but she’d have her doubts.

She _never_ sees him at the house, _never_ sees any evidence left behind to suggest he was ever there, and weirdest of all, Beth was still super uptight and basically short-circuited any time Gangfriend got too close to her. And _he_ was apparently still getting off on watching Beth blush and stutter, and the whole thing just… it just stumps Annie completely.

Like, isn’t that shit supposed to dull and fizzle out after you’ve seen each other naked that many times?

She sometimes wonders if Rio thinks that Annie and Ruby don’t know—or if maybe the whole thing is a performance to keep things under wraps in front of his boys.

Other times she assumes it must all be part of some sort of freaky foreplay for the two of them because honestly? She wouldn’t put it past either one of them.

But mostly she’s just confused. It’s not like she thought that things would be completely different—at least not instantly—but surely by now they should be?

It’s been _months_ at this point, and obviously they seem to like each other enough to keep working together and bumping uglies, so eventually they were bound to become an actual capital-T Thing, right?

Annie and Ruby have talked about it, of course, and that’s the only reason Annie hasn’t bombarded Beth with questions yet. Ruby had essentially sat Annie down and lectured her that they needed to support Beth and give her her space and privacy since this was her first “_relationship”_ since Dean (and because Dean had basically been her _only_ relationship before this).

“I don’t know that I would call it a relationship,” Annie had said, frowning. “As far as we know, they’re just fuck buddies.”

“Can you not be so crass?” Ruby had said, rolling her eyes, and then the whole thing had devolved into an argument about whether Annie was being crude or just honest.

Annie stars snooping on Girls Nights, but so far all she’s found is some documentaries on Beth’s DVR (“What? I like history,” Beth sniffed) and tea bags in her cupboard (“What’s so special about tea?” Beth asked).

Annie’s _this_ close to bursting, to begging for details or an explanation or _something_, when something happens that she could have never expected.

It happens like this: they move Girls Night up from Friday to Thursday. Stan’s brother makes a surprise announcement that he’s flying in the next day, and their whole schedule reshuffles unexpectedly.

They’re having a good time getting wine drunk and watching _Real Housewives_ when Annie gets the sudden urge for sweets and begs Beth to make her special double chocolate fudge brownies.

Annie and Ruby post up at the island while Beth mixes together baking cocoa, butter and eggs or whatever, and they’re all laughing and gossiping about anything and everything (except, apparently, the forbidden topic of Beth’s sex life) when all the girls turn their heads to the sound of the back door squeaking open.

“Yo,” Rio says, appearing at the mudroom door, nodding at Annie and Ruby like nothing’s out of the ordinary.

“Hi,” Ruby says. She’s trying to play it cool, but her voice is definitely too pitchy.

Annie, on the other hand, is speechless.

Annie’s eyebrows shoot up into her bangs as she watches Rio stride across the room casually, dropping his keys in the bowl and his gun on the kitchen counter like he’s done it a hundred times, like it’s _normal._

“Hi,” Beth says, and no lie, she fucking _glows._

Annie’s eyes go wide as she watches Rio step forward as Beth _presents her cheek to him for a kiss _without even pausing in her mixing. Rio brushes his lips softly against her sister’s jaw at the same time that he dips his finger into her mixing bowl and sucks the batter off his finger. He hums. Gangfriend _hums_.

“You makin’ the brownies again?”

_Again?_

“Yeah, you got lucky,” Beth says. “They’re Annie’s favorite, too.”

Rio shoots a grin over at Annie, but she just stares back at him bug-eyed and open-mouthed, incredulous.

“You a’ight?” Rio asks.

Annie snaps her jaw shut. “Yeah. I just… wasn’t expecting that. You. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I wasn’t expectin’ you.”

“Yeah, sorry, I—” Beth starts.

“Nah, it’s cool. I didn’t tell you I was comin’ over,” Rio says, stepping around Beth to pull a baking pan out of the cupboard. He sets it on the counter next to her. “I’ll just hang in the bedroom and leave you ladies to your evenin’?”

“Okay,” Beth says softly.

Rio squeezes Beth’s hip and she flushes. He nods at Annie and Ruby, who just stare at him wordlessly as he leaves the room.

As soon as he’s out of earshot, Annie whips around to Ruby.

“Okay. _Now _can I ask questions?”

“_No_,” Ruby says firmly. Annie’s about to argue, but Ruby interrupts her to say, “I get to go first.”

**II. Dean**

With some time and space after the divorce, Dean is mature enough to admit that it was probably for the best—that he and Beth just weren’t right for each other, as much as they had both wanted to be, and that was why they could never quite make each other happy.

That was probably why he had cheated. Deep down, he knew they weren’t right and he was probably self-sabotaging as a way to release them both from something they were incapable of walking away from.

He gets this idea from his new girlfriend Jeanette, who _is_ right for him. She’s carefree and she’s fun and she’s goofy. She makes him laugh. They’re _good_ together, and so Dean is fine with the fact that Beth’s moved on, too.

Or he is until he realizes _who_ she’s moved on _with_.

Dean obviously hates that his ex-wife is dating the man that nearly put a bullet through his heart, but he’s consoled because he knows that, sooner or later, it will implode. He knows it in his bones.

He knows it because he knows Beth better than anyone—being married to her for twenty years gives him that advantage—and that means he knows that one of two things will happen: Beth will realize her attraction to danger was insane and just a temporary fixation that has no true durability (she had said herself once that she just really liked having sex with the guy), or—probably most likely—the tatted up gangbanger would grow bored of the uptight housewife nagging him about the dishes and insisting she was too tired for sex.

Basically, Dean’s just waiting it out and focusing on Jeanette. There’s no reason to get worked up or fight with Beth about it—he knows that just makes her dig her heels in more, which Jeanette says is evidence of the immaturity Beth never grew out of, since she had the bad childhood and all (Dean maybe broke down their entire relationship—well, mostly; he did skip over some of the details there in the last few years—to Jeanette, who lapped it up and analyzed the whole thing, since she said that she’s sure than in a past life, she must’ve been a psychologist). 

So he puts it out of his mind as much as possible, and he grits his teeth when one of the kids wants to tell him a story about Rio helping them with homework or taking them to the club to play tennis.

That is, until Kenny insists that he wants Rio to come to his birthday party.

The only reason Dean doesn’t put his foot down is because he kind of can’t imagine him showing up, anyway. Can’t imagine the crime lord wanting to come and spend a few hours with twenty screaming kids and Beth at her most neurotic. Can’t imagine that’s exactly his _scene_. It’s barely Dean’s, and their _his_ kids and _his _wife.

Or his ex-wife.

Whatever.

So of course he’s a little rankled when he arrives and sees the guy sipping on a beer and chatting idly with Stan.

Doesn’t Stan know anything about the bro code?

It ends up causing a little fight with Jeanette, mostly because she doesn’t get why Dean’s so sour about the whole thing.

“I know she cheated on you with the guy,” Jeanette hisses at Dean while he glowers at Rio carrying a stack of paper plates over to Beth, who is cutting the cake, “but I thought you said you were over her.”

“It’s not about that,” Dean snaps, only then Jeanette asks what it _is_ about, and Dean doesn’t know why but he doesn’t feel like getting into the whole thing, and it all devolves from there.

Jeanette accuses him of talking about Beth too much, of being jealous, of keeping secrets, and Dean maybe accidentally lets the word “crazy” slip out, and that maybe sets Jeanette off, and suddenly he’s dragging her into his old office to finish the fight there, out of the public eye.

It’s different, in the office. He knew it would be, he took most of his stuff, but it’s just… 

There’s some furniture in here that’s decidedly not Beth—too modern, too dark—and he kind of can’t focus on what Jeanette is saying, and so it all somehow winds up with her storming out.

He hears the front door of his old house slam shut and it’s weird, the feeling that settles over him, then. It’s something bitter and lonely and ineffable, and he finds that more than anything, he just sort of wants to talk to Beth.

As much as Jeanette has helped him see all the ways that Beth was wrong for him, he also knows that for a long time, she was the only one he trusted to talk through his low points. She had this—this special ability where she could just _soothe_ him, and she was good at it, and maybe it’s the exact wrong thing for Dean to do, considering the circumstances, it’s just—he can’t seem to help himself.

When he opens the office door, he hears her at the kitchen sink filling up the sink with soapy water—getting it ready, he assumes, for the onslaught of serving dishes that will need to be washed as soon as the party’s over.

He walks into the foyer and just watches her for a moment.

She hasn’t changed, he realizes, not at all, and he actually feels sort of warm, thinking about it, could maybe even admit he’s feeling nostalgic—

But then he sees Rio slide into the kitchen through the back door.

“I gotta go,” Dean hears him say, and Dean shakes his head, because this’ll be good. He remembers trying to sneak anyway from events like this, the blowouts they would have afterward about “how he never participated.”

“Work?” Beth asks him, drizzling some soap into the water.

“Yeah.” He sounds tense and agitated, and Dean wonders if they’re already fighting, if he missed something earlier when he was wrapped up with Jeanette.

“Okay,” Beth says, and then Rio steps toward her, and Beth tucks her hair behind her ear and seems to—to tilt her cheek out to him so that Rio can press his lips lightly against it, and Dean just stares at them, completely dumbfounded.

Rio squeezes her hip then steps around her, grabbing his keys out of the bowl.

“I’ll see you later. Leave some dishes, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay,” Beth promises, but Dean can tell she’s lying—he’s always been able to tell.

But so can Rio, apparently. “I mean it. You already done too much.”

Beth smiles softly and watches as Rio disappears out of the mud room door, and then she hits the spigot so that the water turns off. She shakes her hands out over the sink, completely unbothered, and then she disappears out the back door, back to the kids and the other moms, back to the party.

The moment is over before Dean realizes it.

But he lies in his empty bed that night replaying it over and over.

How _simple_ it was. How _routine_. How _affectionate_.

He can feel himself figuring it out, feel the tangled knot of confusion unspooling, can feel a realization dawning on him about Beth, about Beth and Rio, about Beth and _Dean_, even and just—

He reaches out and grabs his phone. Calls Jeanette. Apologizes. Asks her to come back to his apartment.

He’d rather not know.

“Hey,” he says, suddenly thinking of it just after she agrees to come, but before they hang up. “Do you think you could pick up some beer on the way?”

**III. Carmen**

Carmen doesn’t know what she expected when she learned her brother was seeing someone—her brother, the one who had had one serious relationship _ever_!—but she knows it wasn’t _this: _some white lady suburban bitch who had clearly never worked a day in her life and who blushed practically every time anyone looked at her.

She says as much to her sister Alexa, who shakes her head as she goes around picking up the leftovers to start putting them away in their mother’s kitchen—because of course Christopher chose his own birthday as the occasion to introduce her to the family, and of course he didn’t tell anyone he was going to be bringing her, and of course the entire thing was a disaster with all his tíos and primos and sobrinos there—but that was probably the point. The chaos of all the Chavezes together under one roof meant less time for them to scrutinize this Elizabeth—or so he had thought.

“Yeah, I didn’t like her either. Too uptight,” says Alexa.

“Why’d she bring this?” Carmen asks, sticking a spoon into the soft artichoke dip that almost nobody had touched, except their mother (out of pity) and Chris (out of loyalty) and Elizabeth herself.

“My guess is so she’d have something to eat,” Alexa says, scooping salsa into a Tupperware. “Did you hear her ask Chris how spicy everything was as they were loading up? She was all—“ Alexa puts on a show of biting her lip and looking uncertain and overwhelmed at the prospect of trying something outside of her bland palette of bread and cheese.

“Do I hear you two gossiping and criticizing?” Their mother calls from the other room. She appears at the doorway, rolling her eyes.

“Are you honestly trying to pretend that you liked her?” Carmen asks, incredulous.

“The only thing that matters is that your brother seems happy.”

“Hmph.”

“I don’t get it, though. Chris hasn’t brought someone home since Mía. Before that? God, since he was like 22? What’s so special about esta perra?” Carmen asks, because she honestly just doesn’t get it.

The two of them together look so mismatched, she can’t even fathom where the two of them met, what one of them said the other first, _god_, who asked who out, why the other one would say yes. Draped in bright floral, Elizabeth was soft and doe-like, big scared eyes on a pale face, acting like anything might spook her. Chris was dark and brooding and larger-than-life, either wearing a scowl or laughing so hard it drew everyone’s attention in the room. 

She wonders what they talk about. She wonders what they do together.

“Maybe it’s because she’s a good cook,” Alexa says, dipping her fingers into the dip and then plopping an artichoke into her mouth. “This shit is actually bomb.”

But Carmen knows that’s not enough to entice her brother, not enough to settle him.

And then she wonders if Chris bringing her around means she’s pregnant, like Mía was, or if it just means she’s permanent, like nobody else has been.

These questions eat at her, and Elizabeth becomes no more likable as she appears at more and more events: Marcus’s baseball games, the grand opening of Chris’s new restaurant, the 4th of July BBQ in their mother’s backyard.

She remains prim and rigid and hard to talk to—an enigma of her brother’s taste.

Alexa caves and eats the woman’s potato salad at the BBQ, even going for seconds, but Carmen refuses to touch it.

She just keeps watching the two of them together, totally puzzled. If Chris even comes too close to her, if he says something low and quiet to her that no one else can hear, the woman flushes something terrible and seems to be unable to do anything more than stutter out a response. Chris is always draping his arm around the back of her chair, or resting his hand on her knee, or curling a lock of her hair around his finger, and she just… sits there. Nonreactive. Reciprocating nothing.

Carmen wishes Chris would show up to something alone so she could interrogate him, wishes they had the kind of relationship where calling him up and asking would end with answers instead of the dial tone. 

Her mother keeps insisting she get on board—it’s been three months since he’s brought her around, and, she keeps reminding Carmen, Chris seems lighter, looser, happier—but Carmen just can’t, not until some part of it makes sense.

It takes a while until she gets him alone—it takes her own daughter joining the basketball team, and a game on a weekend where Chris’s girlfriend apparently has her brood (yes, _brood_, because apparently, the woman has four young children which—it just adds more mystery to the entire thing), and maybe it also takes a little bit of guilt, reminding him she’s always in the bleachers at Marcus’s games, that his sobrina will be looking for him at hers.

When she asks him what it is about her, why he’s drawn to her, he doesn’t say anything at first. He doesn’t even look at her. His eyes are focused on Amalia, and Carmen isn’t even sure whether he’s heard her, wonders whether she should ask again, when he says, “Just am. Why you askin’?”

“It’s just… hard to understand,” Carmen says carefully.

Chris hums, unbothered. 

“She seems… different from what I expected.”

“Me, too,” Chris says, shrugging. 

Carmen tries asking more questions, tries prying deeper, but she gets nothing. His answers drive Carmen crazy, the nonchalance, the lack of explanation, until finally she just bursts and tells him, “I don’t like her.”

Chris looks over at her, then, settles his eyes on her lazily, still nowhere near rankled. “You think I ain’t know that?”

Carmen purses her lips. “Well, you’ve never seemed to try and do anything about it.”

“You ever considered that I don’t really give a shit if you like her or not?” Carmen flinches, surprised and even a little offended. “Your opinion ain’t really needed here.” 

Carmen hears it, even though he doesn’t say it: _I like her. That’s all that matters._

She sucks her teeth and drops the subject.

Still, Carmen’s feelings remain unchanged—until baseball season comes around again, and Marcus has a game, and Elizabeth’s the one waiting in the bleachers when Carmen shows up. Chris is nowhere to be found, meaning he was probably meeting them there.

Carmen grimaces. The boys are still warming up on the field, and the bleachers are still mostly empty besides a few bored parents on their cells. Carmen pulls out her own, opening up the text from her brother, rereading it. She’s made a mistake—arriving almost a half-hour early—a torturously long time to spend alone with Elizabeth. 

She sighs, considering her options. Elizabeth hasn’t seen her yet. She could duck back to her car, hang out there until more people arrive. Or she could try and suck it up, see if the woman is any better one-one-one. It’s an unappealing option—probably the right choice, but still the one she’s reluctant to make—when she sees her brother approach from the other side of the bleachers.

He gracefully swings himself up onto the flimsy metal death trap with ease, and she sees Elizabeth brighten and smile. God, it might be one of the only times Carmen’s seen the woman do that. 

Her brother climbs up the stairs to meet Elizabeth at the top, then leans down over her. Elizabeth presents her forehead for him to kiss, and he does, quick and easy, and then he drops down to settle in next to her. He slides his arm around her waist. Instead of just sitting there poised and rigid, as Elizabeth usually does, she sidles closer to him. Carmen’s too far away to hear anything, but she can see them chatting, see Chris press his ear closer to Elizabeth’s mouth, can see both of them loosen and relax and laugh together.

When Carmen approaches them, they separate a bit. Elizabeth resettles into her prim and proper persona. But Carmen tilts her head looking at her, reconsidering. 

_Okay_, she thinks. Maybe she _could_ try a little harder.

So when Elizabeth offers her some homemade caramel corn that she brought along for everybody, Carmen accepts. 

Chris grins at her, and damn if it’s not the best caramel corn Carmen’s ever had in her life. 


	5. jealous kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked: [I’m torn between Drunk/sloppy kiss or jealous kiss so you pick!](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/189715637632/im-torn-between-drunksloppy-kiss-or-jealous-kiss)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter features drunk sex.

Most of the time when they’re out together and Beth catches a woman eyeing Rio (and it happens enough—more than enough—whether they’re in a bar or the grocery store or, _god_, even at the school play) she has no reason to feel even a twinge of jealousy. 

Rio is so singularly focused on Beth, so adamantly attentive to her and her alone that she’s not even sure he _notices_ that these women are checking him out. If anything, it makes her feel some strange mixture of power and pride that he seems unable to take his eyes off of _her_, that _she_ gets to be the one to go home with him. 

She’s never really thought of herself as a jealous woman, and definitely not a possessive woman. Dean had _betrayed_ her, and she had been hurt, angry, frustrated, but she hadn’t exactly been _jealous_. 

She hadn’t wanted what those women got from Dean (in fact, she had _stopped_ wanting it) and, besides a fleeting jealousy that sprang forth mostly from the ways Dean had conditioned her to feel insecure, she hadn’t envied the women themselves for much more than their youth—their smooth skin and their quick metabolisms and their perky breasts. Things that she felt were the reasons Dean had lost interest in her and her body. Things that she had worried might make it difficult for someone else to _gain_ interest in her and her body.

But Rio had helped her get over that. Not only did he run his hands and his mouth over every inch of her in feverish appreciation, even now, he still put everything aside and couched his chin in his hand and _listened_ when she talked to him.

So it had come as a surprise, was all—something she discovered about herself late in life, something she and Rio only realized after they’d moved in together, deep into their relationship: Beth _did_ have a jealous streak, and they _liked_ it.

It happens like this: they go to a party that Gretchen throws. It’s dull, with boring fancy people that aren’t quite either Beth or Rio’s type. They almost don’t go, but Beth’s determined to get Gretchen to give up her grudge against her for getting Rio arrested. She insists, and Rio caves, and Beth feels victorious for about all of fifteen minutes—or the duration of the car ride—until she walks through Gretchen’s enormous front door of carved oak.

Beth is immediately out-of-place, feeling drab and matronly in a floral wrap dress while all the other women wear chic and slimming glittery pieces. She meets too many people and hates them all. When Rio has his hand around her hip, the women scrutinize her and them men ignore her completely, seemingly deferent to Rio’s "claim" on her. 

It’s exhausting, and then it only gets worse, because Rio gets invited into the office for some cigars with the men. He almost declines, noticing Beth’s spine stiffen under his hand on her back, but Gretchen watches the whole thing carefully, one eyebrow cocked. So Beth shakes her head, insisting he go on.

When she finishes her third flute of champagne and is on the hunt for a fourth, she notices that Rio is back in the larger party talking to a woman. She laughs at something Rio says and leans over into his space. Then she reaches for his arm, slides her hand down his bicep, and _squeezes_. 

Beth blinks, surprised at the sudden jolt of electricity that shoots through her, because she suddenly feels _something_—she isn’t sure what—so keenly that her heart twitters in her chest. 

She watches Rio calmly pry the woman’s hand off of him and tap her shoulder—gently, politely, but dismissively—before he disappears into a crowd of people. The moment is over, and Beth is _fine_—although she may be less than entirely pleasant when she is introduced to the woman ten minutes later. 

After more awkward small talk—and a bit more booze—Beth has almost forgotten about it until she notices the way a completely different woman looks at Rio. Like—like maybe she has seen him naked before. Like maybe she wants to again. 

“Don’t worry,” Gretchen whispers to her, noticing Beth’s eyeline. “They only slept together a few times. It was nothing.”

“Oh,” Beth says softly, swallowing. “Thanks.”

She studies the woman. Tall. Lithe. Black hair and smoky eyes. She imagines them together. 

Gretchen is nearly too far away to hear Beth when she asks, “How many?”

Gretchen stops in her tracks and turns around. She smiles viciously and her voice is falsely sweet as she asks, “How many what?”

Beth clears her throat. “How many of these women has he…” She falters briefly, her head a bit hazy as she looks for the words. “Been with?”

“Oh,” Gretchen says, as if she’s surprised—but Beth knows Gretchen knew exactly what she was asking, she knows Gretchen had _wanted_ her to ask it. Gretchen makes a show of scanning the room, mouthing the words silently as she counts up the number. “Looks like there’s just four here tonight. That is, if you don’t count me—but it was only once, and so many years ago. You have _nothing_ to worry about.” Gretchen squeezes Beth’s arm and then disappears, leaving her reeling. 

Beth feels something white-hot zip down her spine—a cocktail of confusion (because she didn’t think these kinds of dull, fancy women were Rio’s type) and anger (because Gretchen was successful at riling her up) and indignation (because Gretchen thinks Beth should be jealous of a tryst Rio had with her years ago, which—_ridiculous_). 

So it’s a strange sort of jealousy—not one born of envy, exactly—but rather something that grows from her annoyance that these women think they can still look at Rio like that, that they can still _touch_ Rio like that, that they’re acting like they don’t know that he’s _hers_. That he _has_ been hers. That he will _only_ be hers. 

(And maybe there’s an element of wanting to prove to—or maybe just remind—him of the exact effect she knows she can have over him)

When she catches Rio’s eye as he’s across the room talking to some big burly man about who knows what—possibly business—Beth cocks her head and plays with her hair, wrapping a curl around her finger. She briefly licks her lips. She can see, even from this far away, Rio’s eyes go dark, and she feels powerful. That feeling spikes straight down to her belly. 

She sees Rio mouth, “‘Scuse me,” and the quick way he crosses the room to her. 

Beth doesn’t say anything to him, just grabs his hand and weaves him through the people, quietly leading him up the stairs and into Gretchen’s guest bathroom, refusing to glance back to see if anyone sees them leave the boundaries of the party. 

As soon as Rio closes the door behind them, he opens his mouth to say something, but who knows what, because Beth instantly presses herself against him, sliding her hand up his chest as she kisses him, hungry and a bit sloppy, because she’s maybe drunker than she thought. 

Rio meets her enthusiastically, unbothered by their teeth knocking together, unruffled that she bites him harder than she means, unphased that she yanks him down by the shoulders so they’re level and she can maintain the control. 

“Fuck, Elizabeth,” Rio moans hoarsely when she rubs at him through his pants. He’s already hard for her, and it drives her a little wild. 

She unclasps the button of his slacks and spits into her palm, sliding her hand down into his briefs to begin teasing him. Rio groans into her ear, eyes closed, when she touches him just the way she knows he likes. 

“Yeah?” she practically purrs, feeling bolder than usual. “You like that?”

Rio nods and Beth drops to her knees, shoving his pants down to his thighs. Rio sucks in a breath and runs his fingers through her hair, murmuring, “You drivin’ me crazy, mama.”

“Good,” Beth says, and then she takes him in her mouth.

She sucks him off until he’s tugging her hair, letting her know he’s close, that she can stop or they can transition to sex, but Beth shakes her head incrementally and increases her pace and pressure, moaning around his cock to tell him how much she loves making him feel good. 

“Fuck,” Rio hisses as he comes. 

Beth swallows, then wobbles when she goes to stand back up in her heels. Rio, panting still, helps her find her balance and then he pulls her to him, kissing her deeply.

“What was all that for, huh?” he asks, pulling away from her. He tips her chin up and studies the glint in her eye. 

Beth just smiles, opening the door and leaving him to head back to the party.

***

Later that night, when they’re back in their own bedroom, when Beth’s riding Rio, having initiated round two, he tries to flip her over—except she puts her hands on his shoulders and shoves him back down.

He grins mischievously at her, driving up into her roughly in response. “So you got a kink for bathrooms or somethin’, or is there something else I should know to get you riled up like this more often?”

Beth leans over him, pressing kisses along his jaw until she takes his earlobe between her teeth and whispers, “I heard you fucked Gretchen.”

Rio freezes underneath her, but Beth keeps moving against him, rolling her hips in that way that drives him mad—whenever he can actually be convinced to allow her to stay on top. He’s uncertain, looking at her like she’s dangerous, and he tries to fight the moan she’s eliciting, but he fails. 

“She tried to make me jealous,” Beth says softly. “Told me you fucked four other women in that room, too.”

“They didn’t mean nothin’.”

“I know,” Beth says confidently, running her nails down his chest. 

Rio studies her for a moment, reading her carefully before he says, “Oh, this is you _not_ jealous, huh?”

Beth bites his shoulder, hard. Rio laughs. “I’m not jealous.”

“Oh, baby, you somethin’,” Rio says, taking advantage of her momentary distraction and rolling them over so that he’s on top of her. “You know you the only one that gets me hard.”

“I know.”

“The only one that drives me fuckin’ crazy ‘cause I can’t wait to get my fingers in your cunt, my tongue on your clit.”

“I know that, too,” Beth says through gritted teeth as he thrusts into her harder.

“The only one I wanna fuck until you’re coming on my cock, the only one that’s ever made me lose control.”

He leans down to kiss her filthily as he reaches between them and circles his thumb over her clit. Beth moans.

“You know all that, right, mama?” he asks, voice serious and quiet as he decreases his pace and fucks her with long, slow strokes. 

“I know that,” she says. “I want _them_ to know that.”

“They know it,” he promises.

“But—”

“You the only one I’ve ever wanted to wake up to, Elizabeth. They know it.” 

And then Beth’s orgasm rolls over her languidly, and she groans, and it’s enough to make Rio lose himself in her, too. 

Afterwards, collapsed on the bed, sweaty and exhausted, he turns to her. 

“I like you jealous,” he says, leaning over to kiss her quickly. 

“Not jealous,” Beth mumbles.

“Call it whatever you want.” He shrugs. “Either way, I like you.”


	6. i'm not drunk + stay the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [3 word prompts: "I'm not drunk," and "Stay the night,"](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/614404918337470464/im-not-drunk-stay-the-night) for lilliloves/vuccijl. 
> 
> Beth gets divorced and celebrates.

The divorce papers are signed.

Filed.

Approved.

After twenty-two years, Beth is a single woman.

Unfortunately, Annie and Ruby aren’t available to celebrate. Ruby and Stan had gone to visit Stan’s parents for the weekend (a fiftieth-anniversary party they couldn’t wiggle out of attending), and Annie had back-to-back shifts at the liquor store and the hotel valet.

_Fuck it,_ she thinks. She can celebrate alone.

So Beth turns on some music (loud), pours herself a drink (full), and slips into something a little more comfortable (silk).

She bakes some cookies.

She has another drink.

She bakes a cake.

She has another drink.

Pretty soon she’s got a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cookie in the other, and the music is _fun_ and it’s a little _wild_, something with a strong beat and a loud bass—and who _cares_ if Mrs. Karpinski comes over and raps on the door complaining about the noise because she’s _free._

She’ll never hear Dean’s snores—never open the fridge to an empty milk carton—never have to nag him to do the things he promised to do—never be talked _down_ to again.

_Never, never, never_, she thinks, and the list grows long, with all the things that are behind her.

The music, the drinks, the weight lifted off her shoulders—it makes her dance. She’s got no rhythm (Ruby has told her that more than once) and no ability to recognize a beat (that was from Annie) but _fuck it_, she thinks again.

She shimmies and she gyrates and she throws her head back, and she just _moves_.

Only then she opens her eyes and—

“Am I interruptin’ somethin’?”

Beth snaps to attention.

Rio’s gaze is languid as he takes her in, scanning her from head to toe: mussed hair, bright red lipstick (that had been a later addition, somewhere in between third and fourth drink, another _fuck it_ moment because—because she hadn’t worn her lipsticks in a while, and she _wanted_ to and what did it _matter_ that she had nowhere to go and no one to wear it for), the flush scorching across her cleavage (which is peeking out of some, she now realizes, _very_ skimpy lingerie), the freckles dusting her thighs, the electric blue polish she’d applied to her toenails (that had come sometime after the cake, she thinks).

“What are you doing here?” she squeaks, sobering—well, as much as she can anyway (not much, really, but maybe enough to get a grip on this conversation). She turns the music down to a low hum.

“You called me,” Rio says, amusement in his voice. “Couple of times, actually. Left some voicemails.”

The blood drains from Beth’s face.

_What the fuck did she say on those voicemails?_

“You drunk?” Rio asks, running a finger through some spilled flour on the kitchen island, gaze drifting to the dirty mixing bowls and the very badly frosted cake and the uncapped bourbon bottle.

And Beth, in classic Beth fashion, tries to pull her best move: she lies.

“I’m not drunk.”

Rio cocks a brow. “Nah? This your regular artistry?” He nods to the cake. It sags a bit on one side, too.

“I mean… I _was_ drunk,” Beth cops.

“Right, right,” he says, voice soft, reminding her of that time they were in his car—when he’d asked what she was doing with someone like him and then he’d said _those words_, made her think _those thoughts_, and—god, that was so long ago, but it still _did_ something to her, to remember it.

It’s stupid, frankly, for it to have that effect on her because now she had actual memories to compare it to—could remember the firm grip of his hand on her thigh in that bathroom, the way he’d kissed down her body in her bedroom, the way he’d pressed her against the table in the backroom of Paper Porcupine half a year ago, angry and hard, like a pot boiling over—just a weak moment where they’d been desperate to release their tension but _fuck_, it had been so, _so_ good.

_Shit,_ she thinks, squeezing her thighs together. That is _not_ the right train of thought right now.

“So this is you stone-cold sober, huh?”

“Mhm.” She nods once, lip jutted out. She grabs her robe off the back of one of the island chairs, slips it on.

_Maybe she can sell it, _she thinks, because her brain is currently mush and she has no barometer for how badly she’s pulling this off.

They’ve been… alright, these past few months at least. It’s a fragile thing, taped together by their refusal to acknowledge that last time together and by Beth taking that bullet for him—the second of which was also the last nail in the coffin of her marriage, when Dean demanded she get out and she had said _no, _despite the fact that Rio had said they were good now, they were even, she could walk away if she wanted.

Beth steps to start clearing the kitchen counter. She needs something to do with her hands, something else to look at other than him, standing so tall and sharp in her kitchen like he _belongs_ there.

Rio doesn’t say anything, just watches her in silence, and—when did she get used to that?

“Excuse me,” she says, when he doesn’t move when she tries to reach a wet rag to clean up the flour spill. She can’t get all of it—not without touching him.

Rio doesn’t move.

Standing this close, she can smell him, and she takes in a shaky breath.

“So you divorced now.”

“What?”

_How did he—?_

“You had a lot of interestin’ things to say on those voicemails.”

Beth swallows, frozen to the spot, wet rag dripping from her hand.

She wants to ask, but she doesn’t want to know.

“Um. You can… ignore those.”

“Yeah?”

Beth’s breath hitches because he’s looking at her like—like he used to, almost. He’s _curious, _like she’s drawn his attention, like he wants to study her, untangle her knots, figure her out.

“Yeah,” Beth says firmly, turning away from him and depositing the rag in the sink.

“You know what you said in ‘em?” Rio prods.

Beth doesn’t answer, she just takes the mixing bowl she’s already scrubbed off her counter and starts scrubbing it again.

“Talked a lot about regrets,” Rio continues, ignoring her. “Things you wish you hadn’t done…”

Beth freezes.

“Things you wish you had, too.”

Beth knits her eyebrows together. Did she… apologize?

She looks over her shoulder at him, catching, now, the way that his shoulders aren’t holding any tension, the way that his eyes are looking at her softly.

“I meant it,” she says, because she probably did—whatever she said.

Rio considers her, considers whether he can buy that when she’s in this state.

He decides he can, stepping towards her until he’s standing right next to her.

“All of it?”

“Yeah,” Beth breathes.

He hums, reaching up to twirl a strand of her hair around his finger, and Beth relaxes in a way she hasn’t since—

Since forever, it feels like.

She turns to face him, blinking up at him, consumed by him.

“I don’t want more regrets,” she admits, surprising herself.

“No?”

Beth shakes her head, eyes locked on him. He’s so close to her, she can feel his warmth.

“What do you want then?” he asks.

Beth tries to think of a way to say it, to put it into words.

And then his lips are on hers, better than she remembered, and her hand immediately reaches up to cup his face and—

He pulls away, smirking.

“You taste like chocolate and bourbon,” he says lowly.

Beth laughs quietly. “Yeah.”

“I should go.”

“Stay,” she says, too quickly, clasping her hand around his wrist. “Stay the night.”

“Next time,” he whispers, wriggling out of her grasp and squeezing her hip as he presses another kiss to her lips.

When he reaches the doorway to the laundry room, he turns back to her. “And keep those nails painted, yeah? I like that color on you.”

Beth looks down and _knows_ he’s thinking about that electric blue underwear he ripped off of her so long ago. She blushes, but when she looks up, he’s gone as suddenly as he appeared, vanishing like a ghost.

But he’d said _Next time._ Like a promise.

_And there can _be_ a next time, _Beth thinks, breathless. Because she’s _free._


	7. don't you dare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/614449609410052096/i-dont-know-if-you-were-en-serio-asking-for-a) from [septiembre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/septiembre/pseuds/septiembre): I don't know if you were en serio asking for a prompt but just in case - “don’t you dare.”
> 
> Beth joins Rio on a stakeout. They both regret it.

“I’m—“

“Don’t fuckin’ say it,” Rio mutters.

“—bored,” Beth finishes, squirming in the passenger seat.

Rio exhales harshly. “I don’t remember askin’ you to come.”

Beth huffs, and she can see her breath in front of her, illuminated by a streetlight overheard.

They’re on a stakeout, parked across the street from a rundown apartment building where some kid lives—one of Rio’s greener boys that he’s concerned might be double-crossing him. There’d been some chatter, and he was trying to suss out whether the kid is meeting with another boss behind Rio’s back.

It’s dark and cold, and they’ve been here for hours—but it’s true, he didn’t ask her to come. He’d just asked to borrow her van, thinking it would be less conspicuous than the G Wagon—and she’d annoyed him again by asking why he bought the thing, doing what he does.

“I’m just saying,” she’d said while clicking into her seatbelt, “It doesn’t seem like it was a very logical choice.”

Rio’s jaw had worked overtime at that as he realized he was already regretting allowing her to come. The night hadn’t gotten much better from there, but—

“I know. It’s just—we just haven’t seen much of each other lately.” Beth tries to mention it offhand, like she’s only just thought of it, as she digs through her purse for some chapstick.

It was December, and Paper Porcupine was twice as busy as normal for the holidays. Their schedules just hadn’t been aligning, Beth working most days and Rio disappearing most nights. Then Beth shopped on the few days she did have free, while Rio refused to set foot in a mall.

He’d been trying to get her to quit her job, but she didn’t see how she was going to be able to access the printer otherwise, and then he’d suggested buying the place, and Beth had balked, insisting he couldn’t just buy his way out of every problem and—

And here she was, missing him and agitated with him and skull-numbingly bored all at once. Besides her chapped lips, her fingers were practically frozen, too.

“Yeah, I know we haven’t,” Rio agrees, rubbing his jaw. He still doesn’t look at her, keeps his eyes focused on the door of the building, waiting to see someone go in—or come out—that shouldn’t be. “But this how you wanna spend time together? Cold and tired and bitchin’—"

“Oh, believe me, this isn’t exactly the quality time I’d envisioned, either.”

Rio exhales sharply. “What’d you expect, darlin’? Were you wantin’ to cuddle outside of this drug den? Hold hands while we wait to see if this kid is tryin’ to fuck me over?”

“No.” Beth deposits the chapstick back into her purse primly, then rubs her hands together, trying to get the blood flowing again.

“Well, I dunno what to tell you. You asked for this, and now you’re stuck here. You gotta entertain yourself.”

Beth scowls. “Fine.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then she can’t help but say, “And _you_ need to relax.”

“Elizabeth,” he says, an edge to his voice.

Beth sighs, too lethargic to offer up a real fight, and then she slides her fingers between her thighs, up high near her crotch, knowing this is the warmest place on her body right now. She sees Rio glance over at her for the first time, noticing.

“What are you doin’?” His eyes flick back to the apartment building.

“Nothing,” she protests—because god, can she do _anything_ without pissing him off right now?

“Nah, no,” he says, shaking his head and jutting out his lower lip. “This ain’t the time to play games, mama.”

Beth cocks an eyebrow. “What are you—?”

And then she sees Rio shift in his seat, refusing to look at her. She looks down at her lap, then back at him.

“Oh my god. Are you getting turned on just by me putting my hands between my legs? For _warmth?_”

“Elizabeth,” Rio groans, exasperated.

She’s feeling the tension too—it’s been over a week since they’ve slept together, and they’ve gotten kind of used to this everyday habit—but she can’t help it. Despite the fact that knowing he’s affected makes something warm pool low in her belly, too, she laughs at him.

“And here I thought_ I _was the only one affected by not getting to spend much time together,” she sniffs out, pleased. “Getting all riled up by the mere _suggestion _of something. Should I show you my ankle, too? I hear that used to drive the men wild.”

Rio ignores her, but she can see that he’s grinding his teeth.

And then—because this is the most fun she’s had all night, and because maybe his reaction has her feeling a bit cheeky, she says, “Well, you _did_ say I should entertain myself.”

Rio looks at her sharply. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare.”

But now that she has his attention, she kind of wants to keep it.

“Why not?” she pouts, trailing one of her hands up and over her stomach until she’s palming her own breast.

“We are on a fuckin’ stakeout,” Rio grits out. 

But he’s fixated now, watching as her hand disappears under her blouse and into her bra.

“I know,” she whines against the ice-cold feeling of her hand, pinching her own nipple. “And we’re headed into hour four—and I have been _very_ patient.”

Rio jerks away from her, irritated, refocusing on the door across the street.

So she decides she has to get more creative—and pretty soon she has her jeans unbuttoned and her hands down her panties, sliding a finger through her folds. She’s not as wet as she’d like, so starts fantasizing.

Reclining slightly in her seat, her eyes flutter shut as she flits through her memories—Rio with his head between her thighs, eating her out while he had her hands tied behind her head? The time he fucked her in the foyer against the wall, because he couldn’t wait the extra thirty seconds it would take to get to her bed? Once he’d pulled her onto his lap while he sat in that chair by his bed, gripped her hips and helped her bounce on his cock while he moaned and moaned—

And that’s the one, because suddenly she clenches and her fingers glide smoothly through her folds. She keens, readjusting and dipping two fingers into herself, and she hears the unmistakable sound of Rio shifting in his seat, jeans sliding across leather. Then he grunts.

“I’m so wet for you,” Beth pants quietly, knowing that drives him crazy. “Are you hard for me?”

“I’m not playin’ this game with you.”

“Why not?” Beth pouts, sinking her fingers deeper into herself. She moans a little. “It’s very fun.”

Rio looks like he’s chewing his tongue. “‘Cause we here to do a job.”

Beth glances across the street, sees that nothing has changed since she last looked—the same apartment lights are on, the same off, and the door remains closed. Nothing is happening.

“Who says you can’t do two jobs at once?” Beth asks, sliding the hand not working at her cunt over to his thigh. She can feel his muscles clench beneath her fingers. She inches her hand toward his cock, then suggests, sultry: “Or we could split up. You do one job… I do another?”

Rio turns and looks at her, eyebrows knit. “You seriously askin’ to give me a blowjob while I watch the door?”

Beth licks her lips. Then she nods once, almost imperceptible. She watches as Rio swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Do you want me to suck your cock, baby?” she purrs, because she knows, as much as he tries to hide it, that he likes when she uses pet names on him. “Do you want to fuck my mouth?”

“You are the fuckin’ worst,” Rio complains, but he’s already unbuttoning his jeans and pulling out his cock, stroking himself as he keeps his eyes trained on the building still.

Beth grins, then unbuckles, shifting out of her seat so that wedged on her knees between the driver and passenger seats. Her right hand is still down her own pants, working at her clit, and she feels herself get even wetter, knowing she’s won.

With her left hand, she bats Rio’s hand away until he’s gripping the steering wheel. Then she wraps her fingers around the base of Rio’s cock as she runs her tongue up the bottom of the shaft. When she kisses the head, she leaves a red lipstick mark behind.

“Remember the last time we had car sex?” she asks just before she takes as much of his length as she can into her mouth. She bobs up and down on his cock, her hand sliding along with her mouth.

Rio groans, and she hears his head thud against the headrest.

“We almost got caught,” Beth reminds him before she swirls her tongue around him at the same time that she swirls a finger around her clit.

“Yeah, ‘cause you were—“ Rio grunts, running his fingers through Beth’s hair, “—fuckin’ loud. The windows are tinted but—fuck—it ain’t sound proof.”

She takes him as deeply as she can, trying to open her throat—the way Krystal taught her at a game night once—but she gags a little. Rio gently swipes her hair out of her face, rubbing his thumb along her forehead, like he’s checking to make sure she’s okay.

She gasps for a breath, then says, “I think it was because you were making the car rock.”

Rio laughs as she lowers her mouth onto him again, sucking harder and moaning as she increases the speed and pressure against her clit. His laughter dies and turns into a harsh pant.

Last time, he’d taken her in the backseat of the G Wagon, fucking into her from behind, her hand reached out and pressed against the window just to steady herself. Eventually they’d heard a tap on the window, then another, and Rio had wanted to keep going, but Beth had squealed and squirmed out of his grip to drop to the floor—lucky, too, because Rio had only just buttoned up his pants when a nice little old lady had peered in from the windshield, head cocked, wondering what on earth he had been up to in there. He’d wanted to continue, but by the time the woman gave up and left, Beth was not to be persuaded.

Now, though, she almost forgets that they’re technically in public—they haven’t seen another soul in over an hour, and the night had been quiet, peaceful. She’s completely absorbed in Rio—how hard he feels in her hand, how good he tastes on her tongue.

There was something intoxicating about blowing him, in the ways he let go of control like he didn’t anywhere else, in the way she could get him to make that noise in his throat.

She feels her climax peaking, and she begins to chase it, moaning around Rio’s cock until he’s balling her hair up in his fist and yanking at it, mumbling, “Fuck, mama, yeah, keep goin’—yeah, baby, take it—suck that cock—“

And Rio starts lifting his hips, fucking into her mouth. Knowing that he’s close, too, pushes Beth forward, til she feels herself coming on her own fingers, feels the wetness seep into her panties.

Now that her hand is free, she starts massaging Rio’s balls gently. She feels his fingernails dig into her scalp, and he lifts himself off the seat, squirming under her as she hears him take in a sharp breath.

“Fuck—no—fuck—“

Beth presses him deeper into her mouth, trying again to take in his whole length, waiting for him to spill onto her tongue, but then—

“No, fuck, Elizabeth—he’s—I see him.”

“Wha—?” She tries saying with his cock still in her mouth. She pulls away, licking her lips and wiping the saliva off her chin. “What?”

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him,” Rio mutters, furious.

Still on her knees, Beth straightens and peeks out from the windshield, seeing a man in a leather jacket stalking out of the building, the door falling heavy behind him.

“Is that—?”

“Yeah.”

It was the other boss, Rio’s rival, and now the stakeout was a success—only Beth knew what that meant for his boy, and Rio did, too. 

The mood dies.

It’s a quiet ride home—and she can feel Rio’s anger simmering, and something else, too, all of it threatening to spill over.

When they get to the house, she makes it up to him—lets him fuck her however he wants, complies with his every whim, submitting to him completely. It’s not often that she does this—they both enjoy that she can get one over on him sometimes, though he’d resist admitting it—but it releases Rio’s tension like nothing else does.

First he fucks her hard and fast, slamming her into the wall from behind, pinning her wrists above her head as he bites into her neck. He wants her to say his name, and she does—both of them, Rio—Christopher—Rio—over and over again, calling him back to her.

He comes down, after. Beth runs a bath, dragging him into the tub with her. She runs her nails up his legs in the soapy water, soothing him. She leans her head back on his shoulder and lets him nibble at her earlobe as he lazily swirls his finger around her clit, enough to make her sigh but not enough to make her come.

After, he wants to make love. He sinks on top of her in the bed, their bodies still damp from the bath, her hair sprawling on the pillow, soaking it. He kisses her for a while, long and deep, before he enters her. Then he frames her head with his forearms, running his fingers through the hair at her temple, thrusting into her slowly as he kisses the bridge of her nose, each cheek, her lips. He whispers her name into her ear, anchoring himself to her as he finishes.

He’s breathing heavy when he’s done, and he just lays on top of her for a moment as she runs her fingers gently up and down his back.

“When are you going to do it?” Beth asks when he pulls out of her with a grimace, rolling over to his side of her bed.

“Tonight.” His voice is quiet in the dark.

“I’ll wait up.”

“Nah, mama, get some sleep.”

But she doesn’t, of course. He leaves, she waits up, he comes back, and she’s ready. She’s got peroxide and bandages and a rag on the bedside table, and she sits on her knees between his legs as she tidies up a busted lip, a cut along his jaw, and his bloodied knuckles.

After she cleans him up, she double-checks the safety of his gun sitting next to her alarm clock. Then she brings him a cup of tea, sits with him in silence as he drinks it.

He didn’t used to come back to her afterwards, not for a long time. It took a while for him to accept that she wasn’t going to take off or kick him out, that he didn’t have to be alone, or lost in a sea of strangers, drinking in some bar.

Now, though, they both knew: he would always come back to her—after a fight, after a kill. And they knew this, too: whether it was the passenger seat or sitting up alone in the dark, she would always be there with him. 

They didn’t even have to ask. They were partners.


	8. please just go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt from xenalovesoq](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/614803208091680768/omg-no-fairrrrr-three-words-list-is-crazy): Omg no fairrrrr! Three words list is crazy amazing!! Can’t you do all of them!?!? 😂 I love your work! Hmmm. Hard to narrow! “Please, just go” (cuz I like pain I guess 🙄) or “i ruined everything” ... *sigh*
> 
> Beth & Rio have their first big couple fight.

“Please just… go.” Elizabeth turns her back to him, pretendin’ to be deeply interested in something on the bookcase as she swipes away at a tear fallin’ down her cheek. She thinks he doesn’t notice, but he clocks it immediately.

Brow furrowed, mouth slightly open, Rio stares at her, agape.

_Go?_

They’ve been fightin’ for the last two hours, goin’ round and round in circles like they never have before. The sun had set and the light comin’ through her living room window was blue now instead of yellow, but still, here they were in the near-darkness, because neither of them had bothered to stop the fight to turn on a light.

It had started with Elizabeth mentionin’ that Kenny was goin’ to a birthday party this weekend, ‘cause Rio had been under the impression that Kenny was grounded for callin’ Elizabeth a bitch during an argument over chores. 

Rio had cocked an eyebrow, and Elizabeth had defended the decision, sayin’ that he was still grounded, this was just, as she put it, an “exception”—he’d seemed real sorry and it was just that the party was important to him. 

Rio had scoffed, layin’ into her about how consequences would be different in a few weeks—once they were all finally livin’ together. 

Elizabeth had balked, offended that he would suggest she might not be the perfect parent.

He accused her of “havin’ no backbone.” She accused him of bein’ “blind to Marcus’s faults”—outta fuckin’ no where, no less—and it had just spiraled, the fight splittin’ open at the seams til every single thing they’d ever bitten their tongues over was exsanguinating on the floor.

They fought about _everythin_’—from all the times he’d called her a bitch himself to how she acted like a whole different fuckin’ person in front of the PTA moms to how she knows he’s been avoidin’ havin’ her meet his sisters to how he can’t get a fuckin’ thing out of her about her own family to how she can’t get a fuckin’ thing out of him about anything dangerous he’s doing at work and—

And none if it’s been resolved, it’s just been festerin’ and boilin’ and ready to burst this whole time, and now she wants him to _go?_

“Nah.”

Elizabeth jerks, lookin’ over her shoulder at him, too surprised to try and continue tryin’ to hide the fact that her eyes are wet from him—and it does somethin’ to him, makes his chest kinda seize up in a way that makes him swallow thickly.

“’Nah’?” she repeats. “This isn’t me asking you whether you want a beer with dinner. This is me asking you to _leave._”

“And I’m sayin’ no.”

He wants her to scowl, to protest, to do fuckin’ anything, but she just shakes her head and her shoulders sag. He fuckin’ hates it, ‘cause he can’t help thinkin’—

“Elizabeth.”

“What?” Her voice is kinda hollow-like, defeated, like she’s just exhausted and resigned.

“We’re gonna finish this.” Rio steps towards her, and she doesn’t move, but she doesn’t look at him, either.

“I don’t want—“

“Shh,” he says, swiping his thumb over her bottom lip. “We’re gonna finish this fight. We’re gonna order some takeout. And then we’re gonna makeup, yeah?”

Elizabeth glances up at him, scowling. “I don’t _want_ to make up. I’m furious with—”

“Fine. Then we’re gonna fight til we go to bed—“

“Rio—“

“—but I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’m sleepin’ here.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrows shoot up into her hair. “And what if I don’t want you in my bed?”

“Then I’ll sleep on the couch.” He says it definitive, final, no room for negotiation.

Elizabeth’s brow is wrinkled, confused. “Why would you do that when you have a perfectly good bed across town and—“

“Fuck—” Rio exhales sharply, exasperated. “_Because_.”

He clenches his jaw.

He doesn’t have the words to explain it. He could say it’s ‘cause pretty soon they’re gonna be living together and pretty soon there’s not gonna be a place for either of them to run away from each other, but it’s just—

He can’t help thinkin’ about how she’d told him she knew things were over with that dumbass ex of hers when she stopped carin’ enough to fight with him.

Maybe it’s the the finality in his voice, maybe it’s the look on his face—he isn’t sure. But somethin’ makes Elizabeth stop fightin’ him, at least on this point. 

“Fine. Stay,” she huffs. “But I’m not sorry.”

“Me neither.”

“And—“ she adds, like she’s suddenly just thought of it, “—I’m not going to have sex with you.”

Rio arches a brow. “Didn’t know I was askin’ you to.”

Elizabeth squints at him. “And we’re getting Chinese food for dinner—not that authentic place you like, but that greasy place that I like. In the strip mall.” She nods at him, like the decision isn’t up for debate. 

He shakes his head. “They don’t even have chopsticks.”

“I don’t care. It’s what I want.”

Rio licks his teeth. “Well, I don’t wanna sleep on the couch.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

They glare at each other til she turns away from him and grabs her cell phone, callin’ the takeout place, and he hears her ask for a to-go order of Hot and Sour soup, even though it costs extra for ‘em to package it, and even though he knows she don’t eat it. 

He pays when the delivery guy shows up at the door.

So they eat the shitty Chinese food, and they fight some more before they crawl into bed, and they fall asleep angry before they wake up to the sun burstin’ through the sheer curtains, and she’s wrapped in his arms and his cock is pressin’ into her ass. Elizabeth wriggles against him, and Rio pants against her neck, and she puts her li’l hand on top of his and leads it to the elastic band of her pajamas. He touches her til she’s moanin’ and he buries his head into her hair, bitin’ at her shoulder. She yanks down her bottoms just enough and he pulls his cock outta his briefs, and he fucks her like that, both of ‘em layin’ on their sides, not lookin’ at each other. His thrusts are short and shallow til they turn slow and deep. She’s moanin’ his name low as she laces her fingers with his and digs her nails into his palm. When he leads their linked hands to her clit, she pulses around his cock and he spills into her with a harsh pant.

He’s still inside her, catchin’ his breath, when she says, “I want to meet your sisters. Next weekend—or the one after. Before the move.”

“I want you to keep Kenny home from that birthday party.”

He feels her turn rigid, but she says, short, sharp: “Fine.”

“Fine,” he agrees. And then he nuzzles his nose into her hair.


	9. the sex talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part II of Netflix and Chill. Rio gives Kenny the sex talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Anonymous](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/614947733075345408/i-love-your-tumblr-prompt-series-and-was-wondering): I love your Tumblr prompt series and was wondering if you could do a follow up on [chapter 3 Netflix and chill](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21289025/chapters/50694350). I would love to see Rio giving Kenny dating/sex advice.

Rio’s fixin’ a pot of water to boil on the stove when Kenny ambles into the kitchen, his nose buried in his phone. Probably talkin’ to that li’l girlfriend of his—Becca or Bella or whatever—‘cause he’s grinnin’ like a maniac.

He looks up only when he reaches the fridge and opens it, diggin’ around for somethin’ to eat.

“I’m cookin’ dinner right now. No snacks, a’ight?” Rio says, reachin’ to turn on the burner.

Kenny looks over his shoulder, noticin’ Rio for the first time.

“You’re cooking?” he asks skeptically.

Rio knows exactly how the kids feel about the nights that he’s responsible for feedin’ ‘em, and he bristles before offerin’ a clipped, “Yep.”

“Where’s Mom?”

“With your aunts.”

Kenny doesn’t answer, just lets the fridge fall shut as his phone vibrates. He opens a text and is lost to the wonders of technology again before he starts to wander off back towards his bedroom.

“‘Ey,” Rio calls before Kenny puts a foot on the step. Elizabeth had avoided the house for a reason, and all the other kids were still up in their rooms workin’ on homework or playin’ games—so Rio figures now’s his chance.

“Yeah?” Kenny asks, glancin’ up before his eyes are locked back onto his phone again and his face cracks open into a smile.

The boy’s almost Dean’s carbon copy, but he’s got some pieces of Elizabeth, namely her smile—not only does he have the same sharp li’l canine tooth she’s got, but he’s got the same goofiness to it, too. Only it comes easier to Kenny, so every time Rio sees it on him, he can’t help thinkin’ about the first time he saw it on Elizabeth—the day she offered to make him a sandwich when she ain’t have any bread.

Rio scratches his chin. “Your mama talk to you?”

Kenny’s fingers are flyin’ across the keyboard of his phone, and he doesn’t even look up as he asks, “About what?”

Rio licks his teeth. “Your mama have a lot of memorable talks with you this week or what?”

Kenny looks up, and suddenly he’s blushin’ just like Elizabeth does, too, the redness bursting from the bit of chest revealed by his V-neck and straight up to his ears.

“Oh.”

_Yeah_, Rio thinks. _Oh_.

“Sit down, yeah?”

Kenny’s lips twist, and he looks up at the stairs, like he’s thinkin’ of makin’ a run for it.

Rio taps the kitchen island twice, drawin’ Kenny’s attention back. “C’mon.”

Sighing, Kenny drags his feet to the kitchen island and slides into the chair like he’s dreadin’ this whole thing, and Rio gets it, ‘cause he ain’t all that excited about this conversation either.

There’s a few beats of silence where neither of ‘em say nothin’, and Rio pretends to be busy at the stove, but what the fuck is he supposed to do with a pot of water that ain’t boiled yet? He stirs a spoon around in it, anyway, though, and then asks, “What’d you mama say?”

Kenny groans. “Do we have to do this? I think Mom pretty much covered it.”

Rio licks across his bottom lift, then turns to Kenny with an arched brow. “Yeah? You all good now? Feel confident that you know what you’re doing?”

Kenny scowls.

“What’d she say?”

Kenny looks up at the ceiling. He lets out a long breath through his nose. “Well. She had lots of statistics on teen pregnancy to share. Then she said to wear a condom about one hundred and fifty times. And then she told me all the signs and symptoms of STIs. And then she gave a long spiel about how I should wait to until I was with somebody I love, like she did.”

Rio snorts.

Kenny relaxes a li’l and huffs out a laugh.

“So she didn’t tell you anything you ain’t already know from health class.”

“Basically.”

“But I’m gonna tell it to you one more time.”

“Oh, come on,” Kenny groans. “Really?”

“Look, I was your age once, and I know what kinda things go around locker rooms and whatever. Some dumbass kid is gonna try and convince you it’s worth it, and you’re gonna wanna try it without a condom someday—“ he looks over at Kenny now and sees him look down at his hands, and yeah, he fuckin’ clocked that, “—and you’re gonna think it ain’t a big deal. And I just want you to imagine for about five seconds how your mom’s gonna react—how _I’m_ gonna react—if you gotta tell us you knocked up some girl ‘cause you didn’t play it safe after your ma told you a hundred and fifty times not to be an idiot.”

Kenny nibbles on his lip. “I got it.”

“Nah, I’m gonna need to hear you say it,” Rio pushes.

“I’ll use a condom.”

Rio stares at him, waiting.

“Every time,” Kenny mumbles.

“Good.”

“Is that it? Can I go?”

“No.”

Kenny mutters somethin’ under his breath. Rio turns back to the stove and clicks the heat up a tick higher, willin’ the water to boil faster. He can feel Kenny squirmin’ behind him. Turnin’ around, Rio stuffs his hands in his pockets and leans against the counter.

“I wanna talk to you about the other stuff.”

Kenny’s eyes widen. “What other stuff?”

“Everythin’ your mama and health class taught you is about safe sex.” Rio’s mouth twists as he thinks about how to say the next bit. “I wanna talk to you about good sex.”

Kenny turns rigid.

“Oh. I don’t think I need—“ Kenny starts.

Rio cocks an eyebrow. “Oh okay. You not worried at all about bein’ bad at this? You know what you’re doin’?”

Kenny stares at his lap, his jaw grindin’.

“Look, if you don’t wanna talk to me, you can talk to your dad but—“

“I’d rather talk to you,” Kenny mumbles.

“Yeah?” Rio asks, strangely pleased. He knows Dean is always gonna be their dad, but he’s come to think of Elizabeth’s kids as his, and while it’s been easier for the younger kids to accept that, it’s always been a bit harder with Kenny.

“Yeah, I mean. I’ve overheard… things.” Kenny very deliberately looks to his right and focuses his eyes on somethin’ in the livin’ room—clearly avoidin’ lookin’ at Rio. “I’m not sure Dad’s very… good at this stuff. I mean, I’ve seen him flirt with women.”

Rio can’t help it. He smirks.

“And you and Mom aren’t exactly subtle,” Kenny adds.

Rio stands up a li’l straighter and clears his throat.

Kenny’s still not lookin’ at Rio, and he rambles on some more. “I mean—we have eyes, you know? And ears. The walls aren’t as thick as I think you think they are, and the sounds carry—”

Rio glowers, realizin’ that Kenny’s usin’ an Elizabeth move, pullin’ some underhanded shit, tryin’ to wiggle out of the conversation by makin’ _Rio_ regret ever startin’ it.

“I got it.”

“—And we’ve all accidentally walked into the kitchen when you two thought you were alone—“

“‘ey,” Rio says, adding weight to his voice. “I got it.”

Kenny’s eyes flit to Rio’s briefly, and then, embarrassed that he’s been caught out, he fiddles with his phone.

“Put that away.” Kenny thinks about protestin’ for a few seconds, readin’ whatever recent text his girl has sent. “Now.”

Kenny slides the phone into his back pocket, defeated, and rests his chin on his hands.

“I know you think you know what you’re doin’, but you don’t know shit. You watch porn, yeah?”

Kenny balks and stammers out a very bad attempt at a lie—not entirely Elizabeth’s kid after all.

“Yeah,” Rio says, cuttin’ him off. “You ain’t the only one with ears. Like you said. The walls ain’t that thick.”

Kenny rubs his eyes and groans.

“Porn ain’t a teacher. So don’t take nothin’ from it and think that’s how it’s gonna be, yeah?”

Kenny swallows. “Okay. Fine. Whatever.”

“Porn’s also real fuckin’ bad at showin’ what you gotta do to make sure it’s good… for both of you. ‘Specially her. You want it to be good for her, yeah?”

Noddin’ minutely, Kenny refuses to make eye contact. Rio glances over at the pot and, realizin’ he’s at a low boil now, he dumps a box of noodles into the water.

“Now, you’re gonna be good to go after about a minute and a half of kissin’, ‘cause you’re sixteen and you ain’t thinkin’ with this,” Rio taps his forehead as he stirs the noods around aimlessly. “But that ain’t gonna be the same for your girl, and it’s your job to make sure she feels good.”

“Um.”

Rio sighs, scrunchin’ his forehead. Why did he agree to have this conversation again?

“You need to get comfortable talkin’ about this stuff, man, ‘cause if you can’t talk about it, you ain’t gonna be any good at it.”

Kenny’s eyebrows wrinkle, like he doesn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re gonna need to talk to this girl about it. You gotta figure out what she likes. Check in with her every step of the way. When you’re kissing her, when you’re touchin’ her, when you’re takin’ her clothes off—“

Looking up at the ceiling again, Kenny fills his cheeks with air and slowly exhales until they deflate. “Oh my god.”

“Nah, look at me,” Rio says, voice firm. “You need to make sure she’s enjoyin’ herself—not just ‘cause it means it’s gonna be good for both of you, but because if you don’t, you might cross a boundary she ain’t ready for, that she don’t know how to tell you you’ve crossed.”

“I just—“ Kenny looks away, anywhere but at Rio. “Won’t I be able to tell? If she’s enjoying herself, I mean?”

Rio glances at his noodles and sees that it’s time to start cookin’ the sausage. “Best way to know is to ask.”

“But that doesn’t seem very… I don’t know. Like…”

“What?” Rio asks, oilin’ the pan and turnin’ on the other burner.

“How do you ask, I guess? So it’s not like… weird.”

“Just… you know.” Focused intently on gettin’ the sausage out of the wrappin’ and into the pan, Rio rolls his shoulders. “Ask her… if she likes what you’re doin’. Or… what she wants you to do to her. Stuff like that. Uh. Pace. Pressure. Whatever.”

Rio scratches at the back of his head, then he glances at Kenny, who’s silent.

Kenny’s cheeks turn cherry pink, like this is his personal nightmare.

“Look, man, it’s gonna be awkward at first. You’re both gonna fumble around and be nervous—“ Rio knows this to be true, can still remember gigglin’ and laughin’ with Daniela Martinez on his twin bed when they’d skipped school one day, how he’d messed up puttin’ it in and how she’d blushed and told him he didn’t quite have it, “—that’s just what it is. But if you go slow—and don’t skip steps—and you can get her to tell you what’s workin’ for her, you’ll be able to figure out what makes it good for her. And when it’s good for her, you know, then… it’s great for both of you.”

Rio clears his throat, hopin’ that this can be the end of it. He starts cuttin’ up the sausage into little pieces.

“Okay,” Kenny says, like it’s startin’ to sink in.

“And, you know,” Rio says awkwardly, “if you got any more questions… I’m here. Or whatever.”

“Right,” Kenny agrees. “Is that it, then?”

“Yeah, we all done. Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes.”

“Wait,” Kenny says. “I do have one question.”

“Hm?”

“How many… you know… have you, like, _been_ with?”

Rio turns and looks at Kenny, brow furrowed, mouth agape. “‘Scuse me?”

“Just like… it seems like you maybe got around, before Mom? I was just wondering—”

“Go do your homework.”

“I’m not trying to be—“

“Kenny?”

“Yeah?”

“Go do your homework.”

* * *

When he’s inside Elizabeth later that night, and she starts to moan as he sucks a hickie right above her nipple, Rio pulls back to mutter, “Shh.”

Elizabeth ignores him, and as he keeps fuckin’ into her, deeper, faster, her moans grow louder.

“Elizabeth, shut the fuck up,” he whispers. He kisses her to swallow the sounds she’s makin, but it don’t fuckin’ work.

She thinks it’s a game, and eventually Rio’s got his hand clasped over her mouth, mufflin’ her. Her breath is warm and ragged against his palm, her eyes are big and wide starin’ at him, and it’s kinda fuckin’ hot, makin’ her be quiet when she wants to be loud. Her cunt clenches around his cock and he has to do everythin’ in his power not to groan.

“That was new,” she says afterwards, archin’ a brow.

She’s not lookin’ at him, rubbin’ lotion into her thighs—the very thing she was doin’ when he interrupted her—and he pads away into the en suite, ignorin’ her as he grabs his toothbrush.

_The walls aren’t as thick as you think they are._

“What inspired that?” she asks once he comes back into the room. She’s already under the blankets, back into her full pajama set, and she’s got the bedspread pulled back for him so he can slide into next to her.

Rio slips under the covers and pulls her into his arms.

“Dunno,” he lies, ‘cause he knows she’ll be at least twice as mortified as he is if she knew. “Did you like it?”

He already knows she did—he can read her easily, they’ve always been able to communicate best with their bodies, but still.

_You gotta figure out what she likes._

He wants to hear her say it.

“Yeah,” she says softly, and wriggles against him so that their bodies are flush, no space in between them. “I liked it.”

“Good,” he says, and he nips at her shoulder.


	10. 'i've missed you' kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [kiss prompt #2 for anon](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/616507368560279552/number-2-2-ive-missed-you-kiss-elizabeth)

Elizabeth doesn’t wake up when he pushes open the door to their bedroom. He’s not surprised, because for all her yammerin’ about how she’s got four—now five—kids and how she’s used to not gettin’ any sleep, it seemed that she’d learned to snatch it where she could and to sleep through anythin’—one time she didn’t even rouse when an ambulance arrived at the neighbor’s ‘cause the Boyle kid had broken his leg tryin’ to climb up a tree and sneak back into his house in the middle of the night. Another time, she dozed against his shoulder at Marcus and Jane’s soccer game, unbothered by the other parents hollerin’ at the ref and cheerin’ at breakaways and attempted goals.

In the dark, Rio drops his bag next to the dresser and begins unbuttoning his shirt. He slips out of his jeans and throws both into the laundry hamper, which is empty, ‘cause of course Elizabeth would find time to keep up on the laundry when she’d was left all alone with all the kids for nearly a week. She never let anythin’ slip, not at home and not at work, not like she used to back when things were different between ‘em, when it was a game and he always had her scramblin’ to keep up with him.

Now, she’d come into her own. With a little stability, she’d turned into what he always knew she could be.

Rio looks over at her. He can only see her back. She’s wearin’ some of her ugliest pajamas, ones he’s grimaced at before, which she insists are one of her comfiest pairs.

Walkin’ around to his side of the bed, Rio sees that she’s got her hand tucked under his pillow, her phone lying face down in the sheets. 

She probably fell asleep waitin’ for him to call.

He thought he’d make it home earlier. 

Rio sinks onto one knee, leanin’ over her on the bed, his hand on her shoulder. He nudges her awake.

“Elizabeth.”

When she stirs, when her eyes open and then widen, surprised and then happy to see him, he captures her mouth with his—suckin’ a breath in through his nostrils as he deepens the kiss when she rolls onto her back and he crawls on top of her properly.

She tastes like his toothpaste. The organic mint kind that he likes and she hates.

He smiles against her mouth, breakin’ the kiss and pepperin’ her with a few more—light ones on her lips, on her chin, on her cheek. Then he nuzzles his nose into her neck.

“I thought you weren’t going to be back for another two nights,” Elizabeth says softly, runnin’ her nails through his cropped hair.

“Came back early,” Rio mumbles.

“Why?”

Rio lifts his head, brushin’ the hair off her forehead, and lookin’ into her big blue curious eyes.

“‘Cause I could.”

Rio kisses her again, firmer this time.

He thinks she gets it, ‘cause when they break away this time, she says, “The kids will be excited. They missed you.”

“Yeah?” Rio kisses her clavicle. “They the only ones?”

“Maybe not,” Elizabeth admits, sighin’ when he lowers his mouth and bites her nipple through her pajamas.

Rio begins to unbutton her top. “Gotta get you out of these ugly things.”

“On second thought,” Elizabeth says, squirming underneath him. “Maybe I take it back.”

“No takebacks,” Rio murmurs against her breast. “If I’m stuck with you and your old lady pajamas…”

Elizabeth laughs. “Then I guess I’m stuck with you and your disgusting toothpaste.”

He reaches up and kisses her again. “So why do you taste like it, huh?”

“I guess I missed you after all.” Elizabeth shrugs. “Did you miss me?”

Rio smiles, slippin’ her ring off his finger and replacin’ it on her hand like he always does when he gets back from a trip. 

“Yeah, mama. Somethin’ like that.”

And then he kisses her again, sighing into the familiar feelin’ of her against him in the dark.


	11. let your body sink into me like your favorite memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'at first i was unsure’ kiss turning into 'i want more’ [kiss prompt from mego42](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/617074735222833152/20-for-the-kiss-prompts-please-and-thank-you).

When they fall back into bed together, they’re careful not to kiss. It’s the only thing they can control. It’s just like the bar bathroom—the culmination of furious pent-up desire and a wild attraction that, apparently, persists through all of the terrible things they do to each other. They can’t kill it, this attraction, much the same way that they cannot kill each other.

It’s fucked up. _They’re _fucked up.

So, panting and spent, neither of them has to say it. Each of them understands just as well as they understand how to get the other one breathless.

_It’s a one-time thing._

They both know this. So they don’t look at each other after. Rio pulls up his jeans and Beth presses down the skirt of her dress, feeling the trickle of Rio’s come on the inside of her thigh, and they’re so quiet that the silence pounds in their ears.

_Never again._

They agree without so much as a glance at the other.

Only that’s not how it goes.

* * *

_Never again_ turns into _only sometimes_.

It’s only a few weeks before something insane happens—a near-death experience where he has to yank her away from the gunfire, drag her behind him in her stupid heels through the gravel, where he has to double-back and pick her up when she falls with an erratic yelp, her thigh grazed by a stray bullet.

She’s still shaking when he gets her to the safe house.

Rio gives her a first aid kit, stands on the other side of the room, and watches her patch herself up. She has to dig the gravel out of her palm with a pair of tweezers before she tries to dress the bullet graze.

They avoid each other carefully, both electric with the nearness of death, not trusting themselves to be within a few feet of each other.

Rio sleeps on the couch; because of her leg, he gives Beth the bed. But he hears her, in the middle of the night, when she slips into the shower and cries.

He’s waiting on the other side of the door when Beth steps out in just her towel. She didn’t think he’d be awake.

Rio’s eyes fall to her chest, drops of water glistening over her freckles. He looks away.

“You a’ight?” he asks gruffly.

Beth nods, unable to speak. She pulls the towel tighter around herself.

“How’s your leg?”

“Fine,” she says quietly. “It just hurts a little.”

“You’re bleedin’ again,” he says, staring at a rivulet of blood meandering down her thigh that he can only just see in the darkness. “Lemme look.”

So maybe this time he kisses her—only not on the mouth. He presses his lips to the inside of her knee, to the spot just next to her wound. He kisses her cunt and her ribs and her sternum, and he moves carefully over her and into her, until her pain dulls and her pleasure throbs—until he knows she’s alright.

* * *

After that, they’re careful. It only happens when the adrenaline courses through both of them—sporadic, explosive moments after a good deal, after a bad fight.

They avoid beds. They avoid anything that puts them face-to-face. And besides sinking their teeth into each other’s flesh, they avoid putting their mouth to the other’s body.

There’s no tenderness, which is how either of them convinces themselves that it’s okay.

They’re just itching a scratch. Eventually, it will go away.

They both believe this.

Rio has no experience with being insatiably, entirely absorbed in another person, while Beth has good experience with feelings she thought would last forever fading into nothing.

_Soon_, they think, _it’ll be over._

One day they’ll celebrate a new contract in the back seat of the G Wagon, and the next time—maybe nothing.

He’ll go home _with_ someone else, probably, and she’ll go home _to_ someone else, if she’s lucky.

And that’ll be it.

It’ll be for the best.

* * *

But soon they’re courting arguments, finding any excuse to fight, to fuck, and they’ve got an inkling why they’re doing it, but neither of them wants to admit it.

_It’s fucked up,_ Beth tells herself again, _this merry-go-round they’re on._

When she starts to miss him when he’s not around, that’s when she knows she has to end it. She can’t keep torturing herself.

Wanting him _hurts._

She doesn’t tell him that, though, of course.

She just avoids him.

Beth sends Annie and Ruby to the drops for her. She calls Mick to pick up a delivery. She returns his calls with texts because _god_, if she hears his voice—?

“What’s goin’ on with you?” he asks one night, slipping in through her back door when the kids are over at Dean’s.

She should be surprised. She’s not.

Beth sips on a glass of bourbon in her kitchen, barefoot.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

She’s never been able to lie to him, but that’s never stopped her from trying.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Beth takes a drink, licks the moisture off her lip. Rio watches her intently.

Unprepared to have the fight that both of them want—and don’t—Rio makes it about work.

“You’re slackin’,” he says, and she balks, because everything’s running smoothly—she’s just not _there._

“Yeah,” he agrees. “And you need to be.”

“Why?” she challenges.

“Because,” Rio growls, and suddenly she realizes he’s much closer to her than he was when he first walked in the room. “It’s your job.”

“Annie and Ruby can do it just as well,” Beth says lightly. Her glass is empty. She turns from him and refills it. “It’s just a drop. It’s not like you need _me_—“

Rio interrupts her with a scoff, but Beth barrels on.

“—it’s just _business,_” she reiterates, parroting him, pretending the words he’s said so often don’t splice her open at the seams.

“Ah,” Rio says, like he understands something suddenly.

Beth stands up straighter, defensive. “What?”

Rio stares down at her, and Beth’s heart is in her throat.

And then, before she can register it—for the first time since he was in her bedroom—he’s kissing her. 

His mouth is soft against hers, and she can feel the scratch of his beard against her chin, and she _won’t_ sigh into it, she _won’t_, only she can’t control it—

But before it slips out of her, he’s pulling away. Her eyes are still closed, and the world is spinning, and she can’t stabilize.

She waits, holding her breath, but nothing happens.

Beth blinks, and Rio’s looking at her in a way that makes Beth step back from him, swallowing thickly.

She didn’t know he could still look at her like that.

“What are we doing?” she asks, voice a whisper.

“Elizabeth,” Rio says softly. He takes another step towards her, and he runs his pinky down her face in that way that he used to. 

“What are we _doing_?” she asks again, hand on his chest, ready to push him away, ready to fist into his t-shirt and pull him close.

“No idea,” he admits.

But he does, and she does, too, because they’ve never had to talk to be able to understand each other.

He wants her, and she wants him, and they shouldn’t, but they _do_, and they were fighting each other but they didn’t have to—not if they didn’t want to.

It’s not a surprise when he kisses her the second time.


	12. Have You Ever Heard of Personal Space?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **[Prompt from](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/187367883012/oh-gosh-there-are-so-many-good-ones-can-i-ask) [pynkhues](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/):** Oh gosh, there are SO MANY good ones! Can I ask for #2 - “I don’t think so.” and #35 - "Have you ever heard of personal space?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is very old, so you may have read it before, but I never put it in this collection :)

The first time it happens is after Emma’s school play. Beth had (of course) volunteered to make the costumes, and as costume designer, she’d also somehow gotten roped into volunteer clean-up duty after the final curtain. Rio had loaded up all the kids into the van, dropped them off with the friendly elderly woman next door, and doubled back to pick up Beth—where he’d found her in the middle of discovering that all those comments Hayden Lancaster’s father had been making during play rehearsals _had_, in fact, been intended as flirtatious.

“I don’t think so,” Rio drawls from behind them.

Hayden’s father (Rob? Rick, maybe?) has his hand on Beth’s arm, and Beth sees his brow furrow right before he turns away from Beth to look at Rio.

Perhaps not realizing who, exactly, Rio is, or what, exactly, Rio means, Lancaster decides to adopt a slightly offended tone. “Excuse me?”

“Have you ever heard of personal space?” Rio asks, stepping closer and sliding his own hand between both of their bodies, pressing his hand against Lancaster’s chest, pushing him away from Beth.

Lancaster’s a little slow on the uptake. He seems to think Rio is some random person, someone misinterpreting the scenario. “I don’t think your understand—”

Rio breathes out a noiseless laugh, annoyed, and Beth clears her throat to say, “Um, actually—”

“Actually, I think _you _don’t understand. She ain’t available.”

Lancaster looks back and forth between Beth and Rio, clocking his tattoo, her pale pink blouse, his scowl, her flushed cheeks. 

He doesn’t bother to hide the shock in his tone when he says, “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Rio says, now smug. He looks down at Lancaster, giving him a condescending smile. Lancaster takes a step back.

“I didn’t—I thought you were divorced,” Lancaster says to Beth, for some reason still deciding to explain himself. “I didn’t—I didn’t see a ring.”

“I am divorced,” Beth says. “And this is—this is Rio.”

“Your boyfriend,” Lancaster says slowly, apparently feeling the need to announce every step of the process as he pieces it all together. 

Beth gives a small nod, still uncomfortable with the label, even after all this time—even after buying a house with him. Rio asks pointedly, “You ready to go, mama?”

He holds her hand as they walk out together—not exactly rare, but not exactly common either—which she figures is the PTA version of Rio’s way of claiming her as his. It has nothing on the marks he leaves all over her body that same night, though.

* * *

They’re at a bar, and Rio’s stepped outside to take a phone call. It’s a somewhat long call, and Beth’s already finished nursing her bourbon, so she abandons her seat at the bar to use the bathroom. On her way back, a man—a very drunk man—blocks her path.

“Buy you a drink?” he asks with no preamble. He grins at her in a way that makes her skin crawl.

Beth’s defenses instantly shoot up– but she knows the safest way to avoid these kinds of men is to play polite. She doesn’t want this to escalate. “No, I’m alright, but thank you.”

“Come on,” the man says, shooting for playful. Beth tries to step around him, but he’s quick. He steps left and stops her. “One drink.”

“No,” Beth says more firmly. She feels sweat pooling at the back of her neck now. 

“I like the ones that play hard to get,” the man says, pulling his bottom lip into his mouth and leering at her. 

“Leave me alone,” Beth says, stepping right, but he moves along with her. “Let me pass.”

“Feisty,” the man says, laughing, and he actually reaches out to touch Beth’s face. She recoils.

“You don’t want to play this game,” Beth says, trying to look past him for Rio. She glimpses him at the bar, scanning for her, but the man is probably blocking his view of her. “I’m here with someone and he—”

“No, don’t play that game. I saw you. You were sitting at the bar alone.”

Beth can’t believe this guy. He can’t possibly think this tactic is going to be successful—but then Beth realizes maybe he isn’t exactly looking to convince her. He doesn’t really _care_ if she’s receptive to him. 

“He stepped out—”

The man scoffs, then leans in closer to her face. He’s near enough that he draws her attention away from trying to grab Rio’s. She can smell the alcohol on his breath. “If you don’t want a drink, just say so. Don’t fucking lie—”

Beth’s mind darts between her options. She can try shoving the man away, try getting the attention of another patron—_any _other patron—maybe call out for Rio? The options flit away from her, when suddenly she hears Rio’s voice and she breathes a sigh of relief.

“Leave my girl alone, yeah?”

The man turns to look. Rio’s the picture of composed, and he looks at the man through heavily lidded eyes.

“Gladly,” the man says, shrugging. “She’s kind of a bitch anyway.”

“‘Scuse me?” Rio asks.

Beth’s breath catches in her throat as Rio takes another step towards the man until they’re practically chest-to-chest.

“You can have her. I don’t like ‘em all uptight—no fun, you know?” The man grins something ugly, and Beth’s eyes widen when he tries to pat Rio on the shoulder as he tries to walk away. 

Rio’s hand clamps around the man’s wrist so fast that the man lets out a sharp noise of pain. 

“Let me go,” he demands.

“Not so fun bein’ on the other side, is it?” Rio asks, and he shoves the guy back into the wall a bit. 

“Rio,” Beth says. “Let’s go.”

Rio ignores her.

“_Is _it?” Rio asks the man again, tightening his grip on the wrist, pulling it back in a way that makes the man cry out.

“Fuck off,” the man says through gritted teeth.

“_Rio_.”

“When women tell you no, that’s your cue to leave ‘em the fuck alone.”

The man tries to laugh through his clenched jaw, but it comes out more breathy and scared than he means it to. “What if I told you she didn’t say no, huh?”

“You’re a fuckin’ liar.” Rio runs his tongue along his teeth, pulls the guy forward for a second before slamming him back into the wall. This draws the stares of a few other people nearby. One of them steps forward, like maybe he’s thinking of intervening.

“_Rio_,” Beth hisses. “Let’s just go.”

“Is everything alright here?” They all turn to look at the bartender, who has clearly been alerted by someone else. He looks a little nonplussed, unsure of how to break everything up.

“Yeah,” Rio says, dropping the guy’s wrist and stepping back. Rio moves towards Beth and puts his hand at the small of her back, starting to usher her out of the bar without paying the bill. 

The bartender tries to call after them, and Rio just whips back and says, “Do a better fuckin’ job of makin’ sure women are safe in your bar, yeah?” He nods toward the man that was harassing Beth. “He’ll get our bill.”

* * *

The next time it happens, they’re at the grocery store. Rio turns around the corner of the aisle where Beth is only to overhear the man who had just helped her reach a bottle of olive oil on the top shelf ask her for her phone number. 

Rio doesn’t say anything this time; he just walks up to Beth and squeezes her to him, planting a kiss on her cheek. With her still pulled close to him, he turns to gaze at the man, pleased with himself. 

Beth shrugs, a little embarrassed. She gives a small smile to the man, who slinks away. 

She doesn’t think much of the whole thing–besides the look of surprise at their mismatchedness, the man had caught on pretty quickly and there hadn’t been a confrontation.

Rio’s apparently still thinking about it, though, because he asks her–in the middle of fucking her later that night, no less–“You always get hit on this much?”

“Huh?” Beth asks, as he slams into her from behind. She’s not exactly thinking straight, but her brain catches up with her before he thrusts again. “I—No—I don’t know. What?” 

“This is new?” Rio asks. His voice is languid, not matching the roughness of his pace at all. 

Beth grips the sheets. Her breaths are ragged as he rails her.

Rio stops fucking her abruptly, waiting for an answer. “Elizabeth.”

“I mean, I guess?” Beth turns to look back at him. He’s unreadable. She has no idea where he’s going with this. She says, a little defensively, “I can’t control it.”

Rio shakes his head, like that’s not what he means. He pulls out of her slowly, then drives back into her.

“What’s changed?”

_Jesus_, Beth thinks. Could he have this conversation at _any _other time?

“I don’t know–” she says through gritted teeth. And she doesn’t, not really. She looks pretty much the same as she always has. Maybe she’s more confident now? Maybe her mousy meekness has been shed as she’s stepped into Rio’s world–or maybe since she’s stepped out of housewifedom? “I wore a ring before, I guess.”

Rio doesn’t say anything, just presses a kiss to her spine and the shifting of his body causes him to hit something inside of her at an angle that makes her moan. 

“I don’t want anyone else,” Beth says, clenching around him. “You know this. Why does it bother you so much?”

Rio pulls out of her and flips her upside down, slipping back into her easily as he locks eyes with her. He kisses her long and deep, like it’s an answer, but Beth looks at him with her brow furrowed.

“You’re _mine_,” he hisses into her mouth. 

The words do something to her.

She’s his.

She’s _his_.

“I’m yours.” Beth reaches to pull him back down to her so she can kiss him.

“You’re mine,” he whispers roughly, mouth at her ear, thrusts erratic. It’s only another thirty seconds before he collapses beside her. “And I want everyone to know it.”

Beth laughs a little breathlessly, patting him on the chest. Not taking him too seriously.

* * *

“What the fuck is _that_?” Annie asks, grabbing Beth’s hand. “Are you _engaged_?”

“No.”

Ruby side-eyes her. “‘No,’ says the woman, casually, as if she’s not wearing a huge-ass rock on her left hand.” She shakes her head.

“It’s not an engagement ring,” Beth says, as if that’s an explanation.

“So why are you…?”

Beth sighs. Rio had left the ring on her bedside table with a sticky note on top. _You’re mine_. She had known, instinctively, that it hadn’t been meant as anything more than that, and there was some relief in that–it’s not really like she’d like to be married again. She’d slipped the ring on, feeling surprisingly giddy by the gesture anyway–only now she wished she didn’t have to explain it to anyone else. 

“It’s just a gift,” Beth says breezily. “And I’m tired of getting hit on, so.”

“Uh huh,” Ruby says, putting the pieces together better than Beth wishes she would.

“How expensive was this thing?” Annie asks, tugging at the ring. She manages to get it off and studies it under the light, whistling. She’s impressed. She hands it back. “It’s pretty. And, in a weird way, it really fits you.”

The ring isn’t traditional by any means. [The band is black– as is the main diamond. ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.overstock.com%2FJewelry-Watches%2FBlack-Gold-2-2-5ct-TDW-Black-Diamond-Princess-Engagement-Ring%2F8191084%2Fproduct.html%3F&t=ZTdkOTc1ODEyMzE1MDM1OGE2MGUwMGQ0NWUxN2NkYzI5MjJmY2ZkOSxlMjIxOGYyNmZkOWYwYzE2Y2Q4OWRkMTk3NmY2MWZjN2Y0MGNjNGNi)

“Thank you,” Beth says, sliding the ring back onto her finger and ignoring Annie’s question. She doesn’t know exactly, nor does she want to–she already knows it’s worth far more than the Boland family heirloom she’d pawned.

“So are you getting him one?” Ruby asks.

“What?”

“I mean, Homeboy’s damn fine,” Ruby says, and Annie nods vigorously. “You can’t tell me he isn’t getting eyes from women.”

Beth’s speechless. It _has _happened, and while she’s not at volatile as him in her response to it, she can’t exactly say she _loves _it. Still, she hadn’t even considered buying him a ring. 

“What?” Annie asks, reading Beth’s expression. “It’s not like the guy doesn’t like jewelry. I mean, have you met him? He wears a necklace almost as much as you do.”

“And I’ve seen him wear plenty of rings. The man does _love _to accessorize.”

* * *

So that’s how Beth is convinced to buy Rio his own ring–a matching black band that she gets engraved. _I’m yours._

He never says anything (but she hadn’t either)–Rio just slips it on his left hand and while the other rings still move around from finger to finger as they always have, this one never strays from its spot.

The next time Beth is hit on, she just lifts her hand to move the bangs out of her eyes, and the man catches sight of it (honestly, it’s hard not to–Rio had certainly made it large enough) before mumbling an excuse about needing to go.

* * *

The first time it happens is when they’re shopping for a new van for Beth. Rio’s convinced her, finally, that she has the means to upgrade—and, besides, the _My student’s on Honor Roll_ stickers covering up the bullet holes have been embarrassing her for long enough now.

“New car for the wife?” the salesman asks Rio while Beth’s peering through the window at the backseat of used Dodge Caravan. Beth freezes. God, they’d never even adjusted to being called boyfriend and girlfriend—how did she not consider _this _being a logical consequence of their decision? 

But Rio just says, “Yeah.” Like it’s nothing.

“You wanting to look at vans specifically, or did you want to check out some other models as well?”

“Think we’re pretty locked into the van,” Rio says. 

“Kids?” the salesman asks. Beth straightens and turns to see Rio nodding. “How many?”

“We got five.”

“Okay,” the salesman says, whistling. “Vans it is. Used only, or would you consider new?”

“Used, please,” Beth says, at the same time that Rio says, “We want new.”

The salesman smiles as they scowl at each other. “Alright. Well, you’ll be the one driving it, Mrs.—?”

_Boland _suddenly feels too weird to say, even though she’d kept the name.

“Just Beth.”

“Alright, Beth. I’m Dan.” He holds out his hand for her to shake. “Well, why don’t you and your husband walk around the lot, and when you have something you want to test drive, we’ll take it for a spin.”

Beth and Rio nod, walking away from the salesman.

They end up with a brand new van. Of course.

* * *

The second time it happens, it’s Beth rounding a corner at the grocery store and stumbling on Rio talking to a short, thin, _beautiful _woman with long brown hair. She’s looking at Rio with _glee_.

“You’re _married_? No fucking way.” She’s got his hand in hers, staring at his ring. Rio doesn’t contradict her.

The woman catches sight of Beth, who is holding a bag of zucchini and standing awkwardly behind Rio now.

“Is this your wife?”

Rio turns to see Elizabeth standing there with a toothless smile. 

“Elizabeth, this is Jen,” Rio says. “She’s an old friend.”

Beth can tell that Jen is anything but an old friend, but the past doesn’t matter much anymore, she figures. She turns her smile into something warm, shaking Jen’s hand. 

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Same,” Jen says. She turns back to Rio. “I still can’t believe it. You. _Married_. With a _wife_.”

Rio smirks, shrugging. 

Jen doesn’t linger, just tells Rio she’s happy for him before she disappears down another aisle.

“What? You’re wiggin’,” Rio says, reading Beth’s face. He sighs.

“No, I’m not.”

“She’s nothin’. An old fling. Wasn’t serious.”

“No—it’s not that.”

“What is it?”

A little old lady passes them slowly, struggling with her grocery cart. Beth waits until they’re left alone in the pasta aisle.

“It’s nothing. It’s just—you seem so… comfortable? With the wife thing?”

“Yeah? So?” Rio turns around, begins searching the shelves for elbow macaroni. 

“It’s just—surprising, I guess.”

“Why? Just a word.” He finds the box and throws it into the cart.

“It’s not just a word,” Beth says, following him as he trails down the aisle back to the meat section. “Husband. Wife. It’s a whole concept. An idea.”

“Yeah, sure. Partnership and all that. So the way I see it? The word’s got nothin’ on what you really are to me.”

Beth’s left speechless, her mouth gaping open a little bit, and Rio takes that as the perfect opportunity to plant one on her.

“A’ight,” he says, moving on easily. “What else we got on the list?”


	13. speechless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous Prompt: Alright since you're a glutton for punishment brio. 17. Needing to kiss to hide from bad guys. Which is a little ironic given they're sort of also bad guys, well Rio an Beth's a good girl lol.
> 
> This takes place somewhere between 1x05 (“tell ‘em I was hittin’ it”)and 1x08 (the shutdown).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another oldie!

“He buy it?” Rio asks. They’re parked in the field under the bridge again, music playing dully in the background as Rio unzips the duffle bag in his lap.

“What?” Beth asks, turning to watch him begin to count the cash.

“Turner.”

“Oh,” Beth says, suddenly realizing what he’s asking and feeling heat rise to her cheeks. “Um. Yeah.”

_Barely,_ she thinks to herself. She blushes deeper as she remembers the level of detail she’d concocted for the kitchen table story—how it hadn’t been on the fly. How it hadn’t been the only version of events she’d imagined when she’d thought about it in the shower before she’d gone down to the police station.

(How maybe she’s thought about it once or twice in the shower since.)

“You do what I tell you?” Rio doesn’t even look at her—in fact, he seems to ask the question in a tone of indifference, like he’s just making small talk to pass the time.

“Yes,” Beth says, voice clipped. “I told them we—you know. Yes.” He doesn’t need the _details_.

“Nah,” Rio says, shaking his head. “I mean, you make me sound good?” He looks over at her now and he’s smiling—mischievous, just like he had looked last time he was in her van. His eyes flicker over her face and she knows he’s annoyingly pleased with himself that she’s flaming red.

“I—you—what?” Beth asks, fumbling for something coherent to say. She nervously tucks and retucks her hair behind her ear.

“Speechless, huh?” Rio laughs. “Must’a been a real good story.”

Beth glares at him. “Are you done?” She’s desperate for him to finish counting and give her her cut.

“Nah, see, I like to take my time.”

The words hang suggestively in the air between them and Beth makes a noise of strangled frustration in her throat.

“Knew you had it in you,” Rio says when he hands her the cash. Beth’s eyes widen, and Rio grins wickedly before he leaves her alone—but it takes her a minute to regather herself and drive away.

* * *

“Why are we meeting here?” Beth asks a few weeks later, dropping into the corner booth Rio occupies in a darkened bar. “It’s so… _public._”

Rio laughs under his breath as he raises a glass of vodka to his lips. “It’s fine. Meetin’ next to train tracks and abandoned warehouses is a whole lot more suspicious.”

“I guess…” Beth rubs at her neck to loosen the tension. Then it suddenly dawns on her: “Wait. Are you being _watched_?”

“Maybe.” Rio shrugs. “They applyin’ the heat a li’l more lately. I’m just coverin’ my bases.“

“Oh my god,” Beth hisses. “This is you _covering your bases_?”

“Relax, sweetheart. A bar’s a good place to blend. Nobody’s payin’ attention.”

“Are you kidding me? We stick out like sore thumbs.” Beth quickly scans the entire bar, cataloging every person she sees and trying to imagine whether they look like they’re undercover FBI or not.

She jerks her head back to Rio to see him smile, amused by her antics. Her eyes are drawn to the way he runs his tongue along the sharpness of his teeth, and suddenly Beth feels a heat pool low in her belly.

“I need to go,” she announces abruptly. “You can give me my cut later.”

Beth pushes the duffle closer to him, and starts to slide out of the booth—only then the bell on the bar door dings and she sees none other than Agent Turner walk in with two other men and a woman. “Oh my god.”

Rio cocks an eyebrow and follows Beth’s eyeline. “Damn,” he says lazily. 

They watch as Turner and the group settle themselves onto bar stools and order drinks. They’re not looking in Beth and Rio’s direction, but they _are_ facing the back of the bar—and could easily spot them at any minute.

“Oh my god,” Beth whispers, mortification and panic seeping into her bones as she slides lower in her seat. 

“It’s fine,” Rio declares, waving off her worry with a flick of his wrist. “They ain’t here on business.”

He nods towards Turner and the man closest to him, and Beth sees them kiss lightly. It appears he’s on some sort of double date—but whether or not the woman is another agent is hard to tell. She looks vaguely familiar, but Beth can’t place her. 

“Still, what if they _see_ us?”

“You told him I was hittin’ it, right?”

_“No_,” Beth moans.

“No?” Rio asks sharply. “You said—“

“I said it was a one night stand. I said I was never going to see you again.”

“Thought I told you to make me sound good?” Rio almost sounds offended.

“Can you—can you not? Is this the time?”

Rio scoffs, shaking his head. Then he says, “Scoot.”

“What?”

“Get over to that side of the booth,” Rio says, gesturing.

Beth quickly slides over so that she’ll be half-hidden from Turner’s view—only then Rio sidles up right next to her, his thigh pressed against hers. 

“Excuse me?”

“What, you thought I was just tryin’ to protect you?” Rio shakes his head. “Nah. We got a duffle bag of half a million dollars between us, baby. We both layin’ low.”

Beth pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to steady her breathing.

“You realize freakin’ out only makes you stand out more, yeah?” Rio says with agitation.

“Well, I’m sorry if I’m anxious that your stupid plan to meet in a _bar_ might jeopardize my entire life. I have _children,_ you know—"

“Yeah, yeah, you love bringin’ that up,” Rio snaps.

Their argument goes back and forth until Beth notices a flash of white out of the corner of her eye and registers that Turner has just unknowingly passed them on his way to the bathroom, inconveniently located in a narrow hallway right to their left.

“Now what?” Beth moans.

“Let’s try leavin’.”

“I’m not sure if the woman is an agent. She looks vaguely familiar—like maybe I saw her down at the station.”

Rio makes a noise of annoyance.

“Check to see if they payin’ attention,” he commands.

Beth peeks around the corner of the booth and looks at the group, willing them to somehow be absorbed in their phones or enraptured in one of each other’s stories. They aren’t. They chat idly, still facing the back of the bar, and Beth whips back around to tell Rio—only he’s leaning closer to her, too, trying to get a glimpse of them.

“Jesus,” Beth says under her breath. Their faces are far too close for comfort. She can see the lightest freckles dusting his nose, can feel his breath against her cheek. Her eyes dart back and forth, only Rio’s not looking at her, but beyond her, and she’s about to scoot back and away from him, about to hiss that he’s _in her space_ when—

“Go with it,” Rio says suddenly, and before Beth can even register what he might mean, his lips are on hers. Beth goes to recoil, but then his hand slides up into her hair and he tangles his fingers around her curls as he pulls her closer to him, deepening the kiss. Against her better judgment, Beth melts into it, opening her mouth just slightly. She feels Rio’s tongue against her bottom lip and she can just barely discern the taste of vodka. Before she can control it, a small moan escapes her. Rio tugs at her hair in response, and then he pulls away and nips at her.

Beth stares at him, face flushed, only he’s looking over her shoulder. “All clear.”

“What?” Beth asks weakly.

Rio wears a shit-eating grin. “Diversion tactic.”

“Oh. Of course,” Beth says, turning her head to see Turner ambling back over to his stool. She smooths out her hands against her jeans, then clears her throat. “He’s gone now, you know. You don’t have to sit so close to me.”

“Right,” Rio says. He moves away from her, their thighs no longer touching, and Beth purses her lips.

Beth glances at him and Rio looks calm, collected. He takes a long drink of his vodka. He’s not the least bit bothered, but Beth’s heartbeat is fluttering in her chest. The thought makes Beth blush.

“You good?” Rio asks, eyeing her.

Beth goes to say yes, but the word dies in her throat, and she finds herself nodding—maybe a little too vigorously.

“Speechless, huh?” Rio smirks. Then he says, “Tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Beth ekes out.

“Was it as good as your story?”


	14. there's just something about him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Anonymous asked](17%20%E2%80%9CThere%20is%20just%20something%20about%20them/her/him.%E2%80%9D%20for%20beth%20x%20rio%20if%20possible%20please%E2%98%BA%EF%B8%8F): 17 “There is just something about them/her/him.” for beth x rio if possible please ☺️

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another oldie (set in the Little Gifts 'verse but it's not necessary to have read it).

“Oops,” Ruby says as part of her wine splashes out of her glass and onto the side table when she sets it down too roughly. 

Beth and Ruby are sitting on her couch, cozily wrapped up in some blankets, wine drunk and giggling over old episodes of _Real Housewives_. The kids are with Dean, Annie’s in Lansing meeting her new boyfriend’s parents, and that had left Beth and Ruby flying completely solo on a Friday night for the first time in… god, it might actually be _years_ at this point. 

They’d celebrated the occasion with an old bottle of wine saved from Beth’s wedding, figuring it shouldn’t go to waste. At this point in the evening, they’re well past tipsy, with eyes bright and cheeks rosy.

Ruby reaches to start wiping up the red liquid drink with the sleeve of her white sweater. 

“Wait!” Beth interjects, and Ruby freezes. “I’ll get paper towels.” 

Beth jumps off the couch, her own drink nearly sloshing out of her glass and onto the floor. They both burst into hysterics, and Beth goes out of her way to set the drink on the coffee table with exaggerated care. 

“Shit, I think I got some on your Kindle,” Ruby shouts to Beth when she looks closer at the mess she’s made. 

“That’s not mine—” Beth calls from the kitchen, and before she realizes she may be spilling something she hadn’t planned on, she finishes, “—it’s Rio’s.”

“Ooh?” Ruby perks up, curious. “I wouldn’t have pegged him as a reader. What kind of books does he like?”

Beth pads back into the TV book and wipes up the wine. “Um… Actually, I’m not sure. He only really does it when I’m reading, I guess. Or sometimes when I shoo him out of the kitchen.”

“Huh.” Ruby arches a brow, like this information means something to her. She flips open the case, swiping to reveal Rio’s digital bookshelf. Beth’s stomach clenches—she can’t imagine Rio would be thrilled to have someone else going through his things, even something as innocuous as his reading material. “Looks like he’s halfway through a biography of Billie Holiday?”

“He likes jazz,” Beth says with a slightly defensive edge to her voice that surprises her. 

“I can tell,” Ruby says, swiping back further in his reading history. 

Beth hums, anxious for Ruby to set the Kindle back down. 

“Shocking,” Ruby deadpans. “Looks like he’s read several books about the drug cartels in Mexico. Think he’s looking for tips or—?”

“Ha, ha,” Beth bites. “Stop snooping and hand it over.”

Ruby holds out the device for Beth, who inspects it carefully for any signs of wine damage. When she’s satisfied, she sets it down on the coffee table—far away from Ruby’s reach. 

The silence stretches between them, but just as Beth reaches for the remote to unpause the episode, Ruby speaks, asking the exact question Beth is not prepared to answer. 

“Sooo…” she says, stretching out the word. She sucks in a breath, as if preparing herself. “You guys are at that stage now, huh?”

Beth resettles onto the couch, wrapping the blanket around herself tightly before answering. She feigns ignorance. “At what stage?”

“You know, leaving stuff at each other’s places. An extra toothbrush in the cup, clearing out a drawer for a spare set of clothes. Leaving behind _personal_ _effects_.”

“Um… I guess so?” Beth says breezily, as if she hadn’t really thought about it and didn’t think it necessary to clue Ruby in before this moment. 

It’s not just toothbrushes and an extra drawer. Right now, half of the clothes in the washer are Rio’s. He’s got a dozen files in the cabinet in what used to be Dean’s office so he can work from here—plus, he’d bought an extra laptop just so that he was never without (Beth thought that was an absurd expenditure, and they’d fought about it, of course, but Rio didn’t budge—claiming he didn’t want to be lugging around a computer back and forth). 

But it wasn’t just that. He’d bought the last two rounds of groceries, unasked. He’d just shown up with the bags and unloaded them into her cupboards without a word—alphabetizing the contents onto Beth’s shelves just the way she liked (and yes, she was color coding his shirts in her closet when she was hanging them up, too).

The truth is, Rio’s over more often than he’s not these days. It’s not exactly planned, and there’s some randomness to it, but the house (and the bed) is starting to feel sort of empty without him in it. 

But of course, most of these things had happened without comment, without decisions. They’d just sort of eased into it slowly over time, until one day whatever stage they’d been in before felt distant and far away. 

It’s possible, but unlikely, that he’ll show up tonight. While it’s not unusual for him to slip in through the back door silently on a Friday night, sliding into her bed well after she’s fallen asleep, gently waking her when he presses his warm body to her back, he’ll probably want to go home tonight. He’s been out of town the past two nights, a quick trip up to Canada to meet with Fusil (meaning Beth was happy to be left behind), and Beth had texted to let him know Ruby was coming over. 

Beth’s mouth twists at the thought of not seeing Rio for another twenty-four hours, and Ruby purses her lips.

“What?” Beth’s stomach clenches. Ruby hasn’t been unsupportive, but she hasn’t exactly warmed to the idea of Beth and Rio, either. She asks polite, perfunctory questions about him—or about _them_, rather—and that’s it. 

“It’s just—I didn’t know.”

Beth can feel Ruby focusing in on her, reading her. Beth shrugs, downplaying it all.

“This is actually something serious, isn’t it?” Ruby asks. Beth reaches for her wine glass. She downs the rest of it in one long guzzle. “_Isn’t_ it?” 

Beth finally looks over. Ruby’s eyes are narrow, and Beth tries very hard not to blush as she nods. “Yeah. I think it is.”

“How long has it been?”

“Since what?”

“Since you cleared a drawer and kept a second towel on the towel hook.”

Beth chuckles. “I don’t know. A few months, I guess.” Four or five is a few, isn’t it?

Ruby lets out a low whistle. “Okay.”

“‘Okay’? What does that mean?”

“It means… I guess it’s time for me to get on board?”

Beth feels the knot in her stomach loosen. “Oh. Alright.” 

She doesn’t want Ruby to know how heavily her disapproval has been weighing on Beth—how awful it felt to pretend that this thing with Rio was anything less than what it is. It’s not that she wanted to lie. It was just easier not to bring up the truth.

“I mean, I can’t pretend that this is who I envisioned you ending up with…" Ruby says hesitantly. 

Beth hums, circling her finger on her wine glass. She’s unsure of what to say. She’d never really _envisioned_ ending up with _anybody_—not even Dean. She’d been too young, hadn’t even daydreamed of her future in any real way by the time they were already dating. He’d been nice and goofy and he’d seemed so stable—marrying him had been a practical solution to a dozen different problems. She’d settled easily into the idea that she’d be with him forever, not knowing any different (or any better). 

But even after her marriage was dead in the water, she’d never really thought about ending up with anybody else. She’d been too busy trying to survive to daydream about someone sweeping her off her feet. And then it had happened anyway, in some bizarre twisted game with the least likely person. Rio had appeared so _suddenly_, and her feelings had sprouted so _surprisingly_, that she was in the middle of them before she even knew they existed. 

And now here she was, sharing her bed and her closet with a criminal kingpin. 

“Me, either,” Beth admits. Ruby laughs at the admission, and maybe it’s this that makes it hard for Beth, in her wine drunk state, to bite back the smile forming on her lips. And maybe it’s the tipsiness that leads to her saying the next bit, too: “But I sort of can’t imagine it being anyone else now.”

Ruby nods slowly, still adjusting to the idea. “Okay—before I totally commit, I just have to ask… You love him, Annie loves him—what am I _missing_? I mean, the guy’s held a gun to your head, sent you body parts in the mail, and murdered at least one person that we know of. Probably more! I want to be supportive, B, but I need help seeing what you see.”

Beth blushes at the word “love,” but she doesn’t acknowledge it. “Look, I know that this is crazy—I know—but… those things just don’t seem to matter. I don’t forget about them, not exactly, but they were never the reason I pushed him away for so long.” It feels strange to be saying these things out loud. “There’s just… something about him. Something that makes me feel something I never—_god_, that I never felt with Dean or—or—_anybody_.” She rubs her cheeks, willing the redness to disappear. 

"Are you in love with him?” Ruby asks point-blank.

“God, I don’t—I wouldn’t—that’s not the _term_ I would use, exactly.” Beth fiddles with the blanket. 

Ruby rolls her eyes, but lets out a soft laugh, and Beth feels exposed. 

“Can we stop talking about this?” She needs more wine. 

Ruby starts nodding, but then whips around suddenly to ask, “Are you guys going to live together?”

“What?”

“I mean, that’s the next step, isn’t it? You said you’ve been at this one for a few months.”

“I don’t—I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Hmph.”

There’s a pause whether neither of them say anything, where Beth imagines what that might be like. The strange thing is, it doesn’t feel terrifying. She can see it. The kids are already used to having him around—he helps Emma perfect her free throws, Danny with his karate moves; he sits down to help Kenny with math, to draw with Jane—and Marcus is becoming a regular fixture in the house, too. He likes to bake cookies with Beth, and he roughhouses with the boys just as much as he creates elaborate imaginary worlds with Jane. 

Ruby jolts forward. “Oh, god. Does this mean I have to invite him to Harry’s birthday party?” 

“What? No. You can do whatever you want.”

“No, it does. Now I have to invite your serious boyfriend, the drug lord, to my son’s Pokémon themed birthday party.” 

Ruby rubs at her temples, and Beth laughs, and then Ruby laughs too, until suddenly they’re in a fit of giggles and the knot in Beth’s stomach has dissipated completely.

* * *

It takes another two episodes of _Real Housewives_ for Ruby to sober up and head home. Once she’s out the door, Beth folds the blankets on the couch and picks up the wine glasses, heading to the kitchen to wash them. 

When she turns around from the sink, she nearly screams. Rio’s been silently leaning against the island, in the dark, watching her.

Beth’s hand flutters up to her chest. “_God_. You startled me. When did you get ho—here?”

“A bit ago.” he says vaguely. He smirks at her. “Thought you were gettin’ used to this.”

“I just didn’t expect you tonight,” Beth says. Her heart’s still pounding in her chest, but… she’s happy to see him. Happy he’ll be in her bed tonight.

His eyes look a little tired, like he’s been on the road for too many hours, but he leans on his forearms on the counter, and all Beth can think about is how handsome he looks. 

“No?” Rio cocks an eyebrow. 

“I thought that after your trip you’d want to go home.”

“I did,” Rio says, and Beth waits for him to elaborate—wondering if maybe he’s still planning on heading to the loft, that maybe she won’t have him in her bed, after all—but he doesn’t. He just stares at her, earnest, until her cheeks burn.

“Oh,” she says, realizing. “_Oh_. You mean like here—?” She doesn’t finish the sentence. 

“Yeah.” Rio pushes off the counter and walks around the island until they’re toe to toe. She looks up at him, and he brushes her hair out of her face. “Somethin’ like that.”

Beth’s breath catches in her throat. How many times has she stood like this with him? How many times has he looked into her eyes like this? When was any of it going to feel normal? When was he going to stop making her feel breathless and dizzy?

She wants to find something to say, something to let him know what she’s thinking, but she’s coming up blank. 

Rio glances at her lips, and Beth swallows, waiting for him to kiss her. He doesn’t. Just keeps his eyes focused on her mouth.

“What?” she finally asks, voice soft.

“Nothin’. Just like lookin’ at your lips.” His voice is barely above a whisper. “There’s just… somethin’ about ‘em.”

Immediately, a blush sprouts across her entire chest, and she can feel it licking at her neck, rising up to her cheeks. _He overheard, _she thinks, mortified. He’d arrived ages ago, had heard her explain to Ruby that she couldn’t imagine being with anyone else—had heard them mention moving in together, mention _love_? 

Beth opens her mouth to say something, _anything_, but before she can, Rio catches her lips with his own. And the kiss is so _tender_, so _electric_, that Beth realizes she doesn’t need to say anything.

No, she doesn’t need to say anything at all.


	15. your point?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Anonymous asked](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/188648113247/omg-i-loved-your-new-brio-fic-can-i-request): omg i loved your new brio fic!!!! can i request brio + 6 for the fictober thing pls??
> 
> 6\. “Yes, I’m aware. Your point?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a continuation of _[there's just something about him](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21289025/chapters/60211213)_.

They’re both kidless over the next week, and Rio doesn’t go home to the loft once. They both disappear for work or errands, coming back through either the front door (her) or the back door (him) to find the other one entertaining themselves while they were away. Rio comes home in the middle of Beth baking, cleaning, or crafting, and she finds him pacing in the office on the phone, showering after a run, or, once, completing the crossword from Dean’s old newspaper subscription she’d accidentally renewed and has been meaning to cancel. 

She says as much to him on the third day after the kids have all returned, too, when he brings the paper in and sets it by her coffee. They can hear the shrieks of the kids playing in the backyard on one of the first warm days of springtime. 

“Why you wanna cancel it? Thought you loved workin’ yourself up over current events.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Beth says, narrowing her eyes at him. “Or: I like to stay in the loop.”

Rio presses his lips to her forehead before turning around and grabbing some blueberries out of the fridge, which he pops into his mouth. “And I thought a newspaper was how you did that, yeah?”

“I prefer digital.”

“Well, I like print,” Rio says. “Keep the subscription. I’ll pay for it.”

Beth opens her mouth to argue—wanting to point out how little she’s seen him read it, how environmentally friendly it would be if he just let her share her login for the NYT digital subscription, how he reads on a _Kindle_, for god’s sake—when Marcus bursts through the back door in tears. 

“What’s wrong, pop?” Rio asks, opening his arms so Marcus can run into them. 

Marcus collides into Rio’s body. Rio hugs him, rubbing his back, and Marcus sniffles and glances at Beth, like he’d rather not say in front of her. Beth nods at Rio and slides off the island stool, disappearing into the laundry room. She can hear the low murmurs of the two of them talking, and can, from the corner of her eye, see Rio crouched down so he’s eye-to-eye with his son, letting him lay out his grievances completely before he responds.

After several minutes, she hears the sound of Marcus’s feet clamoring up the stairs, and Rio appears, leaning against the doorframe. Beth continues folding some of Marcus’s t-shirts, stacking them into a neat little pile, waiting for Rio to speak. He waits until she glances up at him. 

“We gotta head back to the loft. Probably stay a few days.”

“Oh.” This wasn’t what Beth was expecting. She wants to ask why—but she feels weird about it suddenly, like she might look too needy if she wanted to know why he was returning to his own home after ten straight days at her place. “Well, okay, then. If you find Marcus’s backpack, I can put these clothes in there to take home…?”

Rio studies Beth, like he’s waiting for some sort of question from her, and god, she wishes that her face would stop betraying her by blushing. 

“Is Marcus alright?” she asks suddenly, straightening her back with a jolt. She’s embarrassed that this wasn’t her first question. 

“I’m not worried about that, ma,” Rio reassures her. “He’s a’ight. He’s just… missin’ bein’ in his usual space. You know, with his own things. Wants to head home for a couple of days.”

“Oh,” Beth says, nearly breathing a sigh of relief, when she realizes: “What prompted that? Did my kids—?”

“It’s just normal kid stuff,” Rio says, waving off her anxieties. “Just fightin’ over the same toy, sayin’ it’s ‘theirs’ and not his. Marcus has the same toy at home, so I think he’s just feelin’ left out, like he ain’t got his own space here.”

Beth bites her lip. “I guess we could redecorate Danny’s room so it feels a bit more like Marcus’s, too?” Right now, the top bunk that Marcus sleeps in has a hand-me-down comforter set from Kenny’s _Iron Man_ phase (which made Marcus a bit cranky, as he vastly preferred _Spider-Man_) since Kenny got a whole new bedroom when he moved into Dean’s old junk room space once he’d pointed out he was a “teenager now” and should have his own space separate from his “baby brother.”

Rio keeps staring at Beth, but his expression is impenetrable. Beth has no idea what he’s thinking, can’t even begin to imagine. 

“Is that something you’d be—?”

“I’ll think about it,” Rio interrupts. Beth furrows her eyebrows, worried he might be upset with her, not understanding why he would be—when Rio steps forward and kisses her. It’s quick and light, but he squeezes her arm afterward, and she knows that they’re fine.

She misses him when she crawls into her bed later that night.

* * *

When Beth sees Rio next, a few days later, he walks into the kitchen in the middle of the afternoon while the kids are at school. Beth’s at the sink washing some dishes, and she turns to see him strolling into the room with the paper tucked under his arm—but it’s not her newspaper, since she remembers bringing it in this morning (and promptly dumping it in the recycling bin).

She sees and hears the thud of the newspaper being tossed onto the island, and suddenly Rio murmurs a soft “yo” into her ear as he presses himself to her back. He kisses her neck. 

“Hi,” Beth responds, sinking into his touch. Rio slides his hands from her hips to her stomach, playing with the hem of her sweater. He brushes against her bare skin, and, ticklish, Beth wriggles, splashing both of them a bit. She puts her soapy hands on top of his, clenching around his fingers. “Don’t—I’m super ticklish. You’ll make me squirm.”

“That’s not really the discouragement you think it is, ma.” He nuzzles her ear.

“Oh, please.” Beth laughs.

Rio slaps her ass lightly and peels away from her. He flattens out the newspaper, licks his finger, and starts flipping through the pages. Beth raises her eyebrows in question, but Rio doesn’t acknowledge her. Rio finally finds the page he’s looking for and pulls it out. Beth’s about to ask him about it when his phone rings. He furrows his brow at the caller ID then he raises a finger to her, letting her know it’ll be just a minute. 

_So he was aware she was watching him, _she thinks.

Rio disappears down the foyer hall and slips into the office, shutting the door gently behind him. 

Grabbing the towel and stepping away from the sink, Beth dries her hands and peeks over at the section of the paper Rio had removed from the bundle. It’s Real Estate, and there are three or four red circles around various advertisements. 

So Rio was looking to move?

_God_, Beth thinks. _Could he be more old-school?_ But her lips curve into a smile, because of _course_ Rio would think to look at real estate in the paper instead of the Internet. Besides Spanish pop music that his sisters turned him on to, the man almost exclusively listened to jazz on a vintage restored record player.

Then she starts looking at the houses he's circled. It dawns on her suddenly that Rio’s not looking for _himself_, he’s looking for _them_. All the ads he’s circled have a minimum of five bedrooms. Beth’s heart starts to race, which is ridiculous because it wasn’t even two weeks ago when Ruby had put the idea of moving in together into her head and she had felt surprised to learn that the thought didn’t terrify her.

_Maybe that was the wine, _Beth thinks, thoughts bouncing rapidly through her mind. But maybe it’s just that she thought there’d be more _time_ to wrap her head around it—or maybe she had imagined them _here_, or—

She hears the French doors fall shut behind Rio and the sound of his sneakers against the hardwood floor.

“You’re looking at real estate,” she says almost dumbly.

“Yeah,” he says nonchalantly. 

“For us,” Beth clarifies. “Me. You. Five kids.”

“Yeah.”

“But—”

“Thought you and your girl were talkin’ about this the other night.” Rio steps toward her and taps his finger to her open jaw, prompting her to close it. “Didn’t think it’d catch you by surprise.”

“Well, I…” She tries to think of what to say, but all that’s coming to her brain is all the ways this could screw everything up, and suddenly the panic is there, and she realizes it was definitely just the wine. 

Rio’s had only just worked himself up to ten consecutive days in a row, and now he wanted to move in together? He’d left because the kids were fighting, and didn’t he know that was just going to get _worse_ once they were together all the time? Where would he go when he was agitated by her—by her kids? He hasn’t even really got very annoyed at them yet, which surprises Beth—sometimes they made _her_ want to tear her hair out—and what happens when that happens? Beth would like think she’d react rationally, but the only other person she allows to criticize her kids’ behavior is Ruby (she won’t even let Annie do it!)

“What’s up?” Rio asks, tapping a finger against the side of her head. “What are you worryin’ about now?”

“If we move in together, you’ll be here all the time.”

Rio looks at her like she’s insane. “Yes, I’m aware. Your point?”

“I mean, when you have a terrible night at work, when you’ve just—” her voice drops to a whisper, “—_killed someone_—and you’re agitated, all you want to do is be alone—you’re going to be coming home to a houseful of five kids.”

“Uh huh,” he nods, following along, listening intently even though she can tell he thinks she’s being ridiculous. 

“And they’re not going to let you be alone. They’re going to beg for games and movies and dessert and—”

“I know.”

“You’re not going to have anywhere to go, to escape from—” Is she about to say _the kids? Us? Me?_

“If I need to be alone, I’ll be alone,” Rio promises. “It’s not a hostage situation, Elizabeth.”

“Where?” she asks weakly. “Where will you go? Are you keeping your loft?”

“No, see, the point of movin’ in together is that all our stuff is together. We got one space, and it’s both of ours—and theirs.”

“It’s just, if we’re already looking for five bedrooms, I can’t imagine we’re going to find a place that also has space for you to be alone—I mean, this place only has four bedrooms, plus the office, and Kenny’s closet has to double as storage space because there’s just not enough room, which—”

Rio kisses Beth suddenly, but she suspects it’s just to shut her up.

“If I want to leave, darlin’, I’ll leave. I’ll go for a run, I’ll go boxin’, I’ll call and let you know I’m gonna stay out later, if I need to, before I come trailin’ in the blood from my latest murder.”

Beth can tell he’s teasing her now, and she sighs, exasperated. “You know what I mean. It’s a lot to take on—four extra kids in the house all the time. You do such a good job with them but… what if that changes? What if they start to annoy you?”

Rio tilts his head and looks down at her. “They will.” This was not the answer she was hoping for, but Rio just shrugs. “We’re people, and people annoy each other. It’s normal. Half the time I can’t stand my fuckin’ sisters, but that never changes how I feel about ‘em. I like your kids, Elizabeth. I’m gonna keep likin’ your kids.”

Beth nods slowly, but can’t seem to form the words that she wants.

“Say what you wanna say, mama.”

Finally she admits, voice quiet, “What if it changes everything?”

“It will,” Rio tells her, and her stomach knots. He tips her chin up to look at him. “Elizabeth, that’s kinda the _point_.”

This time, Beth kisses _him_.


	16. hold still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon Prompt: This Isn't Goodbye / I don't need you / Hold Still / Missed You

Rio gently shakes Beth awake. Usually she’s up by this time, but the last few days she’s just felt tired—no, not tired. Bone-deep _exhausted_.

“I’m leavin’, mama,” he reminds her when she peers at him through bleary eyes, confused. He’s got an early flight to Ottawa for a new business deal with some associates that Fusil set them up with. Normally Beth tries to accompany him on these types of trips, but Rio had insisted (or rather _demanded_) that she stay behind.

_Got a funny feelin’,_ he’d told her when he got off the phone with them, setting up the details of the meeting. _Don’t trust these guys._

Beth had argued, of course, but Rio had been firm. He wasn’t going to let her near them.

Unsurprisingly, this had started a new fight—not because Beth wanted to go so badly, but because she wanted him to cancel. Who cared about a new business deal? If he thought they were too dangerous to bring around _her_, then _he_ shouldn’t be going there, _either_. 

Rio had clicked his teeth, though. Told her he was used to this. Told her there was no use damaging their deal with Fusil over it. That they had a lot to gain from this meeting, if it all worked out. He’d be fine. He’d basically promised it. 

“When will you be back?” Beth asks, because her brain feels foggy and the details are hazy. 

“Monday mornin’,” Rio says. “We got the initial meet-up tonight, then a warehouse tour tomorrow. If it’s all good, we finalize the details Sunday night.”

“Okay,” Beth says, trying to sit up but finding her body stiff and achy. “Check-in, okay?”

“Yeah,” Rio nods, and he goes to kiss her, but Beth puts her hand up.

“Better not. I think I’m getting sick.”

“Mmm,” Rio says, pressing a hand to her forehead. “You gonna be a’ight?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Rio presses his lips to her forehead, then pulls his suitcase behind him as he goes to leave the room. “‘Bye.”

“**This isn’t goodbye,**” Beth says, because she hates goodbyes, especially when he’s off to do something dangerous. “It’s see you later.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rio says, rolling his eyes, embarrassed at her cheesiness. But then he says, “See you Monday.”

And then he disappears.

* * *

It’s the flu. But it’s worse than the flu, or at least it feels like it. Beth’s a sweaty mess, her entire body hurts, and she’s had to _crawl_ to the toilet to throw up. Between this and the worry, she’s hardly sleeping, too.

When Rio calls late Saturday night, he wakes her up from a restless dream. She tries to downplay it.

“How’s it going?” she asks, voice thick, trying to sound normal. Her mouth is hot, her tongue heavy. She’s going to throw up again. 

“‘S all good,” Rio drawls. “Started off tense last night, but I wore ‘em down with my charm. Warehouse looks good, lotta product, lotta guys on their team. Should be a fully functional op in less than a month, if we play our cards right. Just gotta talk money now.”

Beth hums in response. She doesn’t trust herself to open her mouth. 

“How you doin’?” Rio asks, concerned. He probably expected her to fuss about how he wouldn’t let her come, since it all turned out fine so quickly. At the very least, he was ready to hear her scoff and shoot back a sarcastic comment about his “charm.”

“Fine,” she manages to get out, but she’s already sliding off the bed and trying to crawl toward the en suite. She puts her phone on speaker.

“Yeah? You don’t sound fine, mama.”

“Flu,” she groans. She should hang up, but imagining saying the necessary words to end the conversation feels impossible. “Bad.”

“You takin’ medicine?” Rio asks.

Beth makes a noise of denial, but can’t manage to express that she’s already run out, basically downed a whole bottle of DayQuil and finished off the bottle of Advil in 24 hours. 

“You need someone to come take care of you?”

“**I don’t need you**,” she grits out, lifting herself up to the toilet and placing her phone on the counter.

“Didn’t say me,” Rio clarifies. “I gotta do this deal.”

Beth doesn’t say anything—she just tries to blindly reach up and press the end button, because she can’t wait anymore. 

Unfortunately, she must not hang up, because after the sounds of her vomiting echo throughout the bathroom, Rio says, “Christ. A’ight. I’m gonna call your girls, see if one of ‘em can come over and help you.” 

Beth doesn’t respond; she just sinks to the floor to feel the relief of the cool tile on her skin.

* * *

She wakes up in bed (unsure of how she got there) to something cold being pressed to her forehead and someone attempting to pry open her mouth to stick in something small and hard underneath her tongue. She thrashes away from it, still groggy from sleep, confused and disoriented.

“**Hold still**, or I’mma stick this up your ass.”

Sleep crusties cloud her vision as she pries her eyes open to see Rio standing above her. It’s still barely light in the bedroom—maybe dawn. She reaches to her forehead and feels that the coldness is a neatly folded wet washcloth, can see now that Rio’s holding a thermometer.

“What are you doing here?” she mumbles.

“**Missed you**,” Rio says simply, but she knows that’s not it. 

“Said I don’t need you.” Beth can feel herself sitting in a pool of her own sweat in the sheets. She really wishes he wasn’t seeing her like this. 

“Yeah, well.” Rio shrugs. “Called your girls, got no answer. You’d think they’d be a li’l more responsive to middle-of-the-night phone calls, bein’ mothers an’ all.”

“I’m fine,” Beth protests weakly, but she feels bile at the back of her throat and swallows it back down, frowning. “You didn’t have to come.”

“You ain’t fine. You look horrible,” Rio says, but then he grabs her chin gently. “You stopped answerin’ your phone, too.”

“You were worried?” she murmurs.

“Naw,” he says, but he won’t meet her eyes.

“What about the meeting?” 

“Open up,” Rio says, ignoring her question and pulling at her chin. “We need to take your temperature.”

“Did you make the deal?”

“You should get a new thermometer,” Rio scolds, trying to jab it underneath her tongue. “One from this century. You know they make ‘em digital now, yeah?”

“You threw away the deal to come here.”

“Would you stop talkin’? This ain’t gonna read your temperature if you keep talkin’.”

Beth _hmphs_, but allows Rio to hold the thermometer under her tongue long enough to get a reading. 

“102.5,” he says, frowning, but Beth can see that the tension in his shoulders dissipates. “Bad, but you’ll be a’ight.”

“I told you I don’t need you.”

“Thanks, ma.”

“You should fly back. You can still make the meeting for tonight.”

Rio shakes his head.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Could say the same to you,” he says, walking around the bed to crawl into it with her.

“Don’t. I’ll get you sick.”

“Elizabeth. It’s five am. I’ve been runnin’ around all night tryin’ tryin’ to find a flight and an Uber and shit to get back here. I just wanna sleep in my bed.”

Beth purses her lips. Since when is _her_ bed _his_ bed?

She reaches for her phone on the bedside table and sees that she’s got 13 missed calls, two voice mails, and half a dozen texts from him. 

“You were worried,” she says softly, setting her phone back down. He won’t want her to, but she’ll read and listen to the messages later.

Rio groans. “Why you fixated on that, huh? You worry yourself over nothin’ all the time.”

“The deal’s done for, isn’t it?”

Rio scowls. “Can you just drop it?”

Beth rolls over to look at him and nods. His eyes flutter closed, but just before he slips into sleep she whispers, “Thank you.”


	17. i don't want to be alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Anonymous asked](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/187203816672/brio-22-100-99): Brio 22+100+99 (I don't want to be alone + I'm not okay + I don't care if you live or die)
> 
> Tags for this chapter: Established relationship, grief

“What’s goin’ on with you?” Rio asks when he crawls up the ladder into the attic to find Elizabeth hiding away going through boxes. She’s been… weird. She’d gotten some phone call a couple of days ago and told him it was “nothing,” but he knows it ain’t nothin’. She’s been throwing herself into cleanin’ (and between the two of ‘em, the house is fuckin’ spotless), sneakin’ off to be alone (hard to do when they _live_ together), and when they _are_ in the same room, he keeps catchin’ her starin’ off into space, totally blank.

“Nothing,” Elizabeth lies, looking up at him but not quite meeting his eyes. 

“You a bad liar, Elizabeth.” He tries to make sense of what she’s doing up here, but the box in front of her appears to be full of shit he can’t make sense of—some clothes (old, it looks like—nothin’ she’d wear today) and little folded up pieces of paper and some battered-up books. 

“I’m just going through some old things,” she says, pulling out a small wooden box.

“Why?” They hadn’t even been in the house two months—he can’t figure out why she’d already be goin’ through things she’d clearly decided were for attic storage. 

Elizabeth doesn’t answer—she’s staring hard at the box. She looks at it as if it might bite her.

Rio squats down so he’s at her level. “Mama, what’s goin’ on? You a’ight?”

“I’m fine. I’m okay,” Elizabeth says, as if this is a sufficient answer. Rio furrows his eyebrows. “I just want to be alone, I think.”

Him and Elizabeth, they’re both private people by nature—don’t like sayin’ more than they have to most of the time. Usually he’s happy to let her be, but he’s kinda losing his patience. He don’t know what it is, but somethin’ is wrong and… and he’s kinda worried about her. 

Rio’s stomach twists, but he’s at a loss of how to get her to come back to him. He just nods, leaving her alone on the floor of the attic staring at the box as if it’s the only thing in the entire room.

* * *

Elizabeth’s in bed before Rio that night, and when he finally comes into their room himself, a sliver of the hall light illuminates part of the space and he’s surprised to see the box sitting on her bedside table. He hesitates when he closes the door shut, considering whether he should snoop and open it.

Before he can make a decision, though, he hears a sniffle. Elizabeth’s in here _cryin_’?

It’s not like he ain’t see her cry before, but he’s only seen her break a few times—really fuckin’ serious times. When he’d handed her a gun and asked her to shoot him. When she’d asked him if he was gonna kill her.

Even that first time he’d had Aviles press a gun to her head—she’d practically refused to let any of those tears wellin’ in her eyes actually run down her face. 

So he knows, instantly, that whatever this is? It’s even worse than he’d thought. 

“You’re not okay,” Rio says, walking across the room in three quick strides to stand at the edge of the bed. He’s not really—he’s not really sure how to handle this. Elizabeth’s turned away from him, her back to the box, and he can hear that her breaths are shaky.

“**I’m not okay**,” Elizabeth agrees after a moment. Her voice is just a whisper.

“What’s goin’ on?”

Elizabeth doesn’t answer, and Rio feels like he’s goin’ fuckin’ crazy.

“Mama, I wish you’d talk to me,” he says, lowering himself to kneel on the ground and gently reaching out to put a hand on her hip. He rocks her a bit, tries to get her to roll over and look at him. He’s struck by how this is not a scenario he’d ever envisioned himself to be in—reachin’ out to comfort a cryin’ woman and beggin’ her to talk to him. 

Elizabeth doesn’t budge, though. 

“D’you… d’you wanna be alone?” Rio asks finally, because he’s not sure what else to say. 

Her voice is so small he has to strain to hear her. “No. **I don’t want to be alone right now.**”

“A’ight,” Rio says, and then, even though there’s only a li’l bit of space left on her side of the bed, even though he’s still in his jeans and button-up, he crawls onto the bed with her. He wraps her in his arms, and he’s relieved when she sinks back into him.

For awhile the only sound in the room is her heavy breathin’ and snifflin’, but eventually, she must wear herself out and she falls asleep, so he allows himself to do the same.

* * *

It’s prolly the middle of the night when Rio wakes up, and Elizabeth isn’t in his arms anymore. He bolts upright, lookin’ for her, and sees the sliver of light under the ensuite door. He’s not sure what he thought might’ve happened, but he breathes a sigh of relief and settles himself up against the pillows.

Elizabeth turns off the light before she opens the door, and she’s startled to see Rio sitting up awake.

This time, Rio doesn’t say anything. He just watches her as she pads across the floor. She goes around to what is normally his side of the bed and crawls in, but she surprises him by resting her head on his chest.

Rio ghosts his fingers up and down her back silently.

It’s a long time before she says anything, and he’s not sure what’s changed, exactly—maybe it’s that they’re in the darkness, maybe it’s ‘cause they’re not lookin’ at each other, maybe it’s because it’s that strange time of night where time doesn’t seem to exist—but Elizabeth finally speaks.

“My mother’s dead.”

Rio doesn’t know much about her mother. Thinks maybe the only time she’s ever told him anything is when they were on that road trip to Canada.

_My dad walked out on us. My mom… she struggled. Struggles, maybe. I haven’t seen her in years. She had a hard time getting out of bed. Lost so many jobs it was hard to get new ones. So I did. I paid the bills. And I took care of Annie._

It’s not somethin’ he can imagine easily with the way his family is—always helpin’ each other, always in each other’s business. Can’t fathom a rift like that. 

“I’m sorry,” Rio says. He’s not really sure what Elizabeth feels about her mom, considerin’ their history, but she’s clearly strugglin’ now with her death. 

“The hospital called me. I was still her emergency contact. After all this time. I guess she didn’t have any friends or a boyfriend or… or anything. I don’t even know—I don’t even know how she knew what information to put down for me.”

Rio takes his hand and starts running it through her hair, just listenin’.

“I guess she… I guess she kept tabs on me?” Elizabeth’s voice breaks and Rio looks down at her through his lashes. Even in the darkness, he can see the tears glistening on her pale cheeks. 

“Sounds like she did, darlin’,” he says, because it sounds like maybe that’s what she’d like to believe. Elizabeth just nods against his chest. 

Rio looks over at the box, tryin’ to figure out what might be inside that was weighin’ so heavy on her. 

Elizabeth must feel his head turn, because she says quietly, “There’s a letter inside. That I wrote to her.”

“Oh?”

“When I was 18—when I was leaving. And taking Annie with me.”

“Oh.”

“I left it for her on the kitchen table. Next to—next to her vodka. And her cigarettes. So she would find it.”

Rio nods, waiting for the rest. It takes a li’l for Elizabeth to summon the courage to keep talkin’, but she finally does.

“It was—it was a nasty letter. ‘**I don’t care if you live or die.**’ That’s what I wrote.”

“You had a lotta reasons to be angry,” Rio says quietly. 

“I don’t even—I don’t know if she read it. Annie was too young to understand why we left, why we couldn’t see Mom. So I went back, a few days later. All guilty. Ready to try and work something out, maybe, or I don’t know. Maybe to yell at her again. The letter was still there on the table, though. Still folded up just the same. The vodka was gone, though. She was passed out on the couch with it. I left before she woke up. Took the letter and… some of her jewelry. It’s in the box, too. I just… wanted something to remember her by, I guess.”

“That the last time you saw her?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth says, and her voice breaks fully, and she’s cryin’, and he’s holdin’ her, and if he could do anythin’ for her, he would. He can’t, though, so he just presses his lips to the top of her head and lets her empty all her tears into his chest.

* * *

Elizabeth doesn’t go to the funeral, and Rio doesn’t ask her why. He sees her bury the box in the backyard in a shallow hole, though, and she sees him see her. She just nods at him once, and he nods back, like he understands.

She starts wearin’ this ugly old ring, though, and he thinks it’s probably her mom’s. He kisses it one night and Elizabeth says heavily, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” he says. And then they never speak about any of it again.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Anonymous asked](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/187090460867/i-cant-just-forget-you-thats-not-how-it): “I can’t just forget you. That’s not how it works.” for brio!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the _little gifts_ universe.

“I can’t just forget you. That’s not how it works!” Beth huffs, frazzled, poring over her holiday shopping list. She’s already crossed off the kids (theirs, plus Annie and Ruby’s), Judith (she’ll still get her something even though she’s not her mother-in-law anymore—god knows the woman deserves it with how much Dean drops the kids on her lap), and she even picked up something for their _boys_ (it still feels so weird to call them that—it’s just that she somehow accidentally learned that Demon and his wife really enjoy making homemade pizza, and well, she found this _beautiful_ pizza peel that could be engraved for a great price at a local market… and then Bullet’s girl just had a baby, so Beth sort of went all out knitting them a blanket). The only people that are left are Annie (she’ll get her something practical that Annie will hate), Ruby (she’ll get her something luxurious to help her relax), and Rio (and that’s the problem—what the hell do you get the man that can get himself anything he wants?).****

“Ma, seriously. Take me off the list,” Rio says, rolling his eyes and pulling leftovers out of the fridge to pile on the counter next to it. The island is completely covered and cluttered with wrapping paper, scissors, gift tags, and bows. “I don’t need nothin’, and I’m f’real tired of seein’ you all worked up about it. It’s annoyin’.”

Rio uses his hip to bump the fridge door shut and begins opening tupperware lids and piling food onto a plate to reheat. 

“Well, did _you_ forget _me_?”

“‘Course not. Found somethin’ for you when I was shoppin’ for my sisters.”

“Oh god!” Beth cries, hand flying to her forehead. “Your sisters!”

Pulling open the junk drawer, Beth grabs a pen and hastily begins scrawling _Miriam, Verónica, Sonia_—and then, embarrassed that she’d remembered Dean’s mother but not Rio’s, _Consuelo_. 

And what about all of his nieces and nephews? God, he had six or seven at least and—

It’s their first Christmas together, _really_ together, and Beth’s about to lose it. She’s still only met his family a handful of times, and she senses they still have some reservations about her and she _really_ wants to win them over and—

“You’re buggin’,” Rio says, turning around and looking at her after he presses some buttons on the microwave. 

“I didn’t get anything for your sisters and your nieces and nephews—can you write down their names, ages, and interests for me? And for your sisters, maybe favorite colors? If I leave soon I can get back to the mall before it closes—"

_Toys for the kids,_ she thinks._ Gift cards for the teens? Robes for the sisters? Each in a favorite color? Or perhaps some kitchenware…_

God, he had such a large family. Thank god they were really raking in money business-wise—she’d never had to shop for so many people in Dean’s family. 

“Did you not just hear me?”

Beth looks up at Rio blankly. Her curls are falling out of the loose bun at the nape of her neck, and she’s even smeared some of her lipstick onto her cheek from how often she’s been rubbing at her mouth in bouts of stress. 

Rio sighs, dropping his head. “Elizabeth. I just told you. I already got my sisters.”

“Yes, _you_ got your sisters. _I_ still need—”

“Jeez, ma, I thought we was partners?”

“I—what?”

The microwave beeps long and loud behind Rio, and he shakes his head, turning from her to take the plate out. With his back still to her, he asks, “What? You think I ain’t put both our names on ‘em?”

Beth’s speechless. And embarrassed. _And_ grateful.

Dean had never taken over holiday shopping. He’d never once accompanied her to pick out gifts for the kids, and she had always felt a twinge of annoyance that the kids thanked him as profusely as Beth when he didn’t even have the slightest idea what they wanted—sometimes didn’t even know what they were _interested_ in. God, even this year when she’d went and gotten Judith something, she’d texted Dean to make sure that he had bought her a gift, or that he was at least planning to, and he’d just written back to ask _Can you grab something for me? I’ll pay you back._ She’d even wrapped it for him (with different paper than her own gift—she didn’t want Judith to know Dean was so useless).

Beth knows that Rio’s not Dean, that Rio has done this whole Christmas charade before as a single dad and as a single man, so she shouldn’t be surprised—but still, somehow in the hecticness of the season, she’d just sort of… forgotten. Forgotten that she could rely on him. 

A warmth spreads through her that he’d already put her name on the gifts without a second thought, like it was _normal._

It makes her feel even worse that she doesn’t know what to get him.

Rio reads it on her face, and, abandoning his plate of food, he walks over to her and presses his chest to her back, sliding his hands from her hips to her belly. He nuzzles his face into her neck.

“Stop it,” he insists. 

“It’s just—”

“Elizabeth,” he says, and his voice is on edge now; she can tell she’s annoying him. “You’re drivin’ me crazy. I got everythin’ I need. Who cares?”

“I do!” she protests.

Rio pulls back from her and turns her around to face him. “Why?”

“Because,” Beth says, and then she freezes, not wanting to continue.

“C’mon. Why you care so much?”

“Because!”

Rio fixes her with a stare and a cocked eyebrow. When Beth doesn’t collapse under it, he digs at her, shrugging and saying, “Didn’t expect you to be so materialistic about it.”

“I’m _not_,” Beth argues, words bursting out of her mouth. “Presents show that you _know_ someone, that you _care_—”

Rio grins at her, and Beth presses her fingers to her eyebrows, shutting her eyes. She can feel a blush creeping up her chest.

“I just—I just would like to do something _nice_ for you, okay?” Beth says, exasperated, wondering, _Why are we fighting about _this_, of all things?_

“Elizabeth, I’m eatin’ leftover enchiladas with mole outta _your_ fridge,” Rio says. 

“So?” 

“You don’t even like mole.”

Beth furrows her brow, not following. “And?”

“You asked my ma for this recipe,” Rio elaborates. “And you keep makin’ it. Even though you ain’t gonna eat it.”

“_You_ like it,” Beth says.

“Yeah, I know. I’m just sayin’… it’s _nice_. So thanks.”

Beth’s mouth falls open slightly, realizing that Rio is trying to say, in as few words as possible, that she _already_ does nice things for him that shows she cares. Rio grabs his food and presses a kiss to her cheek as he passes her on his way to the dining room.

“Still, I—”

Rio groans. “Jesus, Elizabeth, if you really want to, go buy me a pair of old man pajamas to match yours. But I’m tellin’ you now I ain’t ever gonna wear ‘em.”


	19. headcanons drabbles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A series of very small drabbles exploring my early Brio headcanons.
> 
> Original posts found [here](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/186843424917/18-26-28-brio), [here](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/186844687232/23-and-27-for-brio), [here](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/186846218372/brio-14-17-24), and [here]().

**18\. Who leaves little notes in the other’s one lunch? (Bonus: what does it usually say?)**

Beth has always left her kids little notes—sticky notes on their chests when she was working too much, “have a good day” notes in their lunch pails, long-winded paragraphs about how special they are in their birthday cards. She used to do it for Dean, once upon a time, but that was a long, long time ago. 

Honestly? Rio would probably hate the idea of her even preparing him a lunch, let alone appreciate a little note tucked inside it, so she doesn’t do it with him.

Until she does. 

He’s gone for a long stretch once—has to travel to Canada for a job, and she’s got the kids for the week, so she doesn’t go with. 

It’s the longest they’ve been apart since they’ve been together, and her nerves are frayed because, like usual, he’d clammed up about the details, told her not to worry—as if that would be possible. The nights are hard—she doesn’t hear from him until the early hours of the morning, two, three, four o’clock, confirming he’s okay—so she’s basically not sleeping more few hours for days in a row. 

When he’s finally on his back to her—_safe_—Beth tries to wait up for him, but exhaustion tugs at her. He’s probably within an hour of her when she knows she won’t be able to make it another minute. She leaves a sticky note on the mudroom door (where she knows he’ll be sneaking in) that says _Dinner in the fridge_, and another on the tupperware container that says _Happy you’re home safe. Wake me when you come to bed._

Rio never says anything about it, but he does wake her, and Beth forgets about it until weeks later when she’s tidying the bedroom while he’s in the shower. His wallet sits on the bedside table, and she spies the bright blue of her sticky-note poking out of it a bit, tucked there between his money. She glows. 

He doesn’t let her send him off with meals often, but it does become a habit for her to leave him little sticky-note messages on the mirror or next to his keys in those infrequent times that it seems like they keep missing each other when their schedules don’t sync up. And so far? So far she’s never found one in the trash.

**28\. What do they do when they’re away from each other?**

Both of them are independent beings at heart, right? Beth and Dean didn’t really _do_ much together for the last ten years of her marriage, so she’s perfectly comfortable spending time alone. Of course, much of her time is spent with the kids or making meals or creating something for the school play or the holiday bazaar or what-have-you, but when she really gets a moment completely to herself? Beth likes to read. Mysteries, preferably—something fast-paced that keeps her guessing, something that’s compelling enough that she can’t put it down, otherwise she might not get back to it for weeks and she might forget the details.

Like Beth, Rio isn’t used to sitting still. When he’s not also taking care of Marcus, a lot of his time is eaten up making sure everything in his business runs smoothly. He’s checking in with his moles, carefully planning drop schedules and figuring out cuts, and taking care of problems that have bloomed under his nose. When that’s dealt with, he decompresses by boxing—and if there’s time left over? Honestly, he makes it a point to go to his mother’s house and make sure that she’s good, that she doesn’t need anything. 

Eventually, they’re together more than they’re not—but because they’re so used to being _alone_, they still need that space sometimes, and so Rio picks up reading, too. He hasn’t ever been against it, per se, it’s just that he’s never made much time for it. But now? Now Beth might be on the couch reading and he might be in the chair, and they’re together but they’re not, both in separate little worlds, feeling like they’re hitting that solitary recharge button at the same time that they’re comforted by hearing the sound of the other one turning the page, taking a sip of coffee or tea, just _breathing_.

**23\. Who comes up with cheesy pick up lines?**

Rio makes an offhand comment once that Beth is terrible at flirting. It’s meant to be light and teasing, but Beth gets indignant (of course). I mean, she’d seduced _him_, right? 

She says as much, and Rio just smirks a little, even looks _down_, like he can’t hold eye contact with her.

“_What_?” she demands.

He gives her due credit for that little hair-twirl and eye-fucking in their bar—for turning away from him and lifting up her dress—admits that it drove him _fucking_ _crazy_ and that it was his go-to fantasy for many, many weeks, until she’d given him more to fantasize about, but—

“Mama, you was a mess the second time.”

“Excuse me?”

He lays it out for her—how she’d grinned all big in that bar (which, admittedly, was cute as hell), how she’d offered to make him a sandwich like she needed to wait on him hand and foot (not quite the way he’d have hoped, he says, if he was being honest, and Beth blushes crimson before smacking him playfully), and then how she’d been so _practical_ taking off her own coat and boots—not to mention the socks. 

“Well. It worked,” she huffs.

Rio laughs and nuzzles into her neck, assents that it did, even if he still doesn’t understand it himself most of the time. He tells her it doesn’t matter that she’s a terrible flirt, that she can make him wild with the dumbest shit—like when she dips a finger into something she’s cooking and licks it off, when she rubs lotion into her thighs, when she puckers her lips while doing her lipstick.

Rio doesn’t realize it for a while, but Beth doesn’t drop it. She’s not really the type to accept being bad at something, even something as silly as flirting. 

Rio finds her frowning at her phone in bed one night when he comes out of the shower. Her eyes dart back and forth across the screen and she’s got a hand to her cheek in consternation. She doesn’t even notice him, so caught up in it, and he’s able to get up right up next to her and reach to tip her chin up at him when she gets flustered and drops the phone, blushing pink. 

“What you doin’, mama?” he asks, sitting down on the edge of the bed with her.

Beth refuses to tell him, so Rio starts ribbing her, acting like she must’ve been reading porn what with how agitated she is—until Beth caves, embarrassed he would think she was doing _that_ when he’s right _here_. 

She begrudgingly admits that she was looking up advice on flirting.

Rio tips back his head and laughs in that way, that contagious belly laugh he has, and Beth can’t help smiling at him.

That’s how he gets her to start reading him the article—some list of 50 pick-up lines. They’re awful, and Beth’s a little awful at reading them, but it turns out it doesn’t matter. 

No matter how bad her tactics are, he’s mad for her, and he makes her keep reading them even as he starts pulling down her panties. 

**27\. Who would sing to their child back to sleep?**

Beth has always been the type to sing a lullaby, and she’s never thought anything of it until Rio’s a witness to it one night when Marcus has a nightmare at his loft. 

Rio’s impressed by it, by the way Marcus’s eyes flutter shut as she lightly scratches his head and sings him a quiet, sweet song that soothes him, and he tells her so.

Beth is shocked that he’s never done it himself.

“Never once?”

“Nah. Usually just talk him through it. Sometimes rub his back. Tell him monsters ain’t real, that kinda thing. Your way was quicker, though.”

“You should try it,” Beth insists. 

Rio refuses, but Beth keeps pestering him, and she eventually wins out when Jane wakes up in the middle of the night and comes weeping into her bedroom a few weeks later.

Jane has taken to Rio in a way that none of her other kids have—she even chooses him over Beth sometimes. Jane sits on his lap when they all watch a movie, she asks him for help tying her shoes in the mornings, and lately he’s the person to whom she’s addressing all of her artwork—not to mention the fact that Jane’s also pressed temporary tattoos to her neck at least twice in imitation of him. 

Because of this, Beth is not exactly surprised when Jane interrupts her mother’s song to say, “Mommy? Can _Rio_ sing instead?”

Rio is about to shake his head when Beth sends him a sharp look. Jane looks up at him in her spot between them in the bed, eyes glassy, and Rio finally caves. 

That’s how Beth discovers the first thing that Rio is truly bad at—and not just bad, but _terrible_. Can’t keep a tune to save his life. 

Jane finally falls asleep (needing her mother’s voice after all), and Beth just smiles at him as he carries Jane up to bed, finally satisfied to see him knocked down a peg.

**14\. Who kisses the hardest?**

Rio, usually—he likes setting the pace, the energy, the roughness. Sometimes it's soft but usually it's hard, and there’s always a moment where she breaks him and he loses all control. 

Every now and then, though? Beth surprises him. 

It seems to happen over the dumbest shit, too. Rio will have dinner waiting for her when she gets home, and that night she’ll reach her arms up around his neck and pull him down to her in a way where she’s gotta bend backward and he’s gotta hold her against him just to keep them both upright—just so she can kiss him just the way she likes. 

Other times, he’ll just pick up something at the grocery store he’d noticed she’d needed, or he’ll help Kenny with his homework or Emma with her free throws, and she’ll push him down onto the bed and crawl on top of him, biting him at his shoulder, nipping at his chin, coming at his lips so hard sometimes their teeth bump together. 

He doesn’t really get it, her reaction to these things—and it’s random, which things seem to set her off. Sometimes nothing comes of it, sometimes she still lets him take the lead, and sometimes they’re both too tired at the end of the night for any of it. 

It doesn’t matter: he does all the things anyway, because ain’t that what partners are for?

**17\. Who says I love you first?**

They both know how the other feels about without it needing to be vocalized. Beth says it when she tells him to be careful before a job, when she notices he seems to like her short ribs the most and she starts making them a little more often, when she lightly runs her nails down his back when he’s having trouble sleeping. Rio says it when he gently shakes her awake every morning that he leaves before she’s started her day, when he irons her blouses that she’s been meaning (and failing) to get to in between all her other responsibilities, when he rubs the tension out of her neck after a particularly long day.

They don’t need to say it, so it’s surprising when it just falls out of Beth’s mouth one day like it’s nothing.

Rio’s taking all five of the kids out to breakfast, giving Beth the morning to herself to finish all the baking she’d volunteered to do for Kenny’s first 6th grade dance that’s happening tonight. Everyone’s crowded in the foyer together, hugging and kissing goodbye, and Rio presses one right at the corner of her mouth, and she says, “’Bye, love you,” to him as easily as she’s just said it to all of her children. 

Rio’s eyebrows shoot up, and he looks a little amused at Beth’s cheeks bursting into flame. She immediately starts readjusting Emma’s ponytail and forcing Danny to zip up his jacket, being a busybody so she can look anywhere but at Rio again. 

When they all finally filter outside, Beth pinches the bridge of her nose, embarrassed. She goes back to the kitchen to give herself something to focus on other than _that_. When she hears the sound of the van doors shutting, all the kids clearly loaded up, she starts breathing again.

Beth’s head snaps back up from carefully measuring out her dry ingredients when she hears the front door swing open and closed. 

“Forgot somethin’,” Rio says, rushing a bit with her keys in his hand. 

“Oh?” Beth barely gets it out before he’s on her, catching her by surprise with his lips on hers—a full kiss this time, something deep. He pulls away and she exhales. “What’d—what’d you forget?”

“That,” he says, but she hears, _Love you, too._

**24\. Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear during inappropriate times?**

If Rio isn’t making her cross her legs tightly and blush while they’re in public, what’s even the point? His favorite, though, is when he can get her to actually give in to it.

So far they’ve snuck off and fucked at one of Marcus’s soccer tournaments (it was the fourth game by that point, but they’d still made sure he was on the sidelines at the time, of course), at one of her boring PTA friend’s dinner parties, and once in the car before he’d dropped her off at Annie’s. 

One time, when they’d been feeling particularly daring, after he’d merely told her how much he was interested in the idea, they’d slipped into the back bedroom—the one he grew up in—at his mom’s house during one of his nephew’s birthday parties.

It was still mostly decorated the same—old pictures of Rio in his football uniform with his buddies, an old poster of Selena Quintanilla still hung up on the wall—and Beth took it all in with hungry eyes. 

They should’ve been quick, but Beth didn’t seem as hot and bothered this time as she just seemed… overwhelmed. She’d kissed him in this languid, deep way that sent shivers down his spine as he lowered her onto his old bed. He didn’t understand it, and he should’ve changed the tone or the pace so they could get back out there, back to the birthday boy opening gifts, but Beth had smiled up at him in this new way, and he’d just been totally lost in her. 

One of his sisters caught on—sent him a sharp look when they’d returned, but thankfully Beth didn’t notice it. She’d just tucked her hair behind her ear, grinned as she butchered singing along to Feliz Cumpelaños, and then helped his mother pass out cake to all of his family.

**3\. Most common argument?**

In many ways, Beth and Rio are lucky that they don’t fight like most couples. They never have to argue about splitting up household responsibilities. They’re both early birds and they’re both neat freaks—and they’re even pretty good about respecting the other one’s parenting decisions without making a fuss. It’s not that they never say anything—Rio openly wishes Beth would limit the electronics a bit more, Beth notes that Marcus could stand to hear the word _no_ more often (she knows he’s almost the perfect kid, so it’s really about principle more than anything else—the kid has to know a reality where everything’s not at the tip of his fingertips, right?)—but they both implicitly know the other is a good parent, that the kids will end up just fine. 

However, just because they don’t fight about those things does _not_ mean they don’t argue. Beth and Rio love a verbal spar. They can have one over anything—and they do.

They argue about how to pronounce a word, about obscure traffic laws, about whether a movie is any good. They both dig their heels in and both refuse to admit that they might be wrong. Annie has definitely made a comment about how they’re no fun to hang out with at least twice. 

Their most common argument, though? 

Rio can’t stand Beth’s obsessive need to shop sales and use coupons. He becomes practically murderous when he accompanies her to the grocery store.

“Stop comparin’ price per ounce,” he snaps at her when she leans in close to the shelf to compare cans vs. pouches of tuna. “And if you put any more store brand shit in this cart—”

“It’s practical,” Beth insists. “It all tastes the same, and it saves a lot of money!”

“One: no, it don’t. And two: you don’t need to save money!” he hisses. “Jesus, if you don’t got it, you can just print it.”

“I have it,” she bites back. “You know I have it.”

“So can you fuckin’ act like it?”

And around and around—until Beth finally caves and she just lets Rio order all their groceries delivery from Market of Choice (she doesn’t even want to see the bill, and he won’t let her anyway), and she keeps her coupons tucked far away from his sight. 

They live in relative peace for about two weeks of the new arrangement, until Rio suddenly starts openly complaining about her absolutely atrocious taste in art, and then it starts all over again. 

**7\. What’s the first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings for the other?**

They both realize they have feelings for each other at the same time—each recognizing it in the quiet light of her bedroom. For him, it’s the way she touches his face so softly—like it’s the most scared she’s ever been of him. For her, it’s the way kisses her, tenderly, hungrily, like he could do it forever, like he has all the time in the world for this.

Of course it can’t last, though. Beth leaves his money on the bedside table and showers so she doesn’t have to watch him leave, and it messes everything up for a long, long time.

When they finally come back together, though, nothing changes at first—they’re both so guarded, so mistrustful, so terrified of being vulnerable like that again that the only time they allow themselves to be is while they’re in bed together. 

Beth thinks it’ll be something big, some sweeping gesture, to let her know that it’s real this time. But it’s not. It’s that slow transition of him coming to sleep at her house more often than not, of them finding that it’s okay to sleep together without _sleeping_ together, of him staying around long enough in the morning for tea instead of jetting off to his responsibilities. 

It’s nice, but it’s quiet, and sometimes doubts still niggle at her, even though she doesn’t want them to.

The gesture comes much later—many months later, even. It’s the middle of the night, and his naked body is pressed against hers. Beth’s just about to drift off, warm and content in the darkness, when he clears his throat and says, “It’s my birthday in a few weeks.”

Beth freezes, unsure how he wants her to respond. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” He nuzzles into her neck and doesn’t say anything for a long time. Beth starts to become convinced that he’s fallen asleep, that he’d just dropped this tidbit and then rolled off to dreamland, when he says, “My ma always throws a party.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s… nice,” Beth says, because he still hasn’t proposed anything.

In lieu of an invitation he just says, “You’ll have to call me Christopher around them, though.”

And that’s how Beth knows he’s let her all the way in. 

**10\. Who remembers what the other one always orders at a restaurant?**

One of the first signs that Rio had been paying attention to her—besides the big ways, besides the ways he always let his eyes linger or let his body get too close—is when he orders her a bourbon on the rocks. She thinks she might be overthinking it, because god, how many times has he seen her with a drink in her hand at that point? They were always meeting in bars with Annie and Ruby, after all, so she pushes it down, convinces herself she is making something out of nothing.

Except they meet at a café not long after that—it’s just supposed to be a quick drop, she’s just leaving him with his cut from the dealership—but he’s there before her and he’s already got a tea for himself and a coffee for her.

“One cream, two sugars, yeah?” he asks her, nodding at it. 

He hasn’t seen her order a coffee since she’d tried to get him to sell botox during the shutdown. 

So she sits. 

Once they’re together, he teases her for always ordering the same thing at restaurants. Rio never orders the same thing twice, it seems, so Beth never bothers to try and remember any of it. There’s no point. 

She does, however, know that he likes his steak medium-rare; his eggs scrambled with cheese, onions, and jalapenos; and his tea green instead of black. She makes sure to keep it in stock in her cupboards just for him. She also knows that he likes fresh tomatoes but that he won’t touch them if they’re cooked, that he only just tolerates mushrooms, that he’s allergic to strawberries. 

Also? As much as he seems to like trying something new at restaurants, he seems to love knowing that she has a routine meal schedule. He always makes sure to be there for Saturday morning crepes and Sunday night chicken and dumplings—and he even snags his mom’s enchilada recipe for her, so that? That becomes Thursdays.


	20. that's just adorable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Anonymous asked](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/post/187193241787/brio-thats-just-adorable): brio “That’s just adorable.”

“How we get roped into this again?” Rio asks as Beth hands him his morning tea. 

“I believe what your sister said was, and I’m quoting here: ‘that son-of-a-bitch owes us for all the years we watched Marcus.’”

Rio scoffs and Beth just raises her eyebrows like, _Well? It’s true, isn’t it?_

“She’s never asked before,” he grumbles, taking a bite of toast. 

“Well, she may have also said that it made her feel better to know that I would be here,” Beth says, taking a sip of her coffee and pursing her lips, avoiding looking directly at Rio.

That wasn’t exactly what Sonia had said. She had said, “Before I’d be skeptical to leave him with all of the kids for an entire week, but now that he has a _girlfriend_ with four kids of her own…”

“‘_Scuse_ me? I got a kid,” he says, offended at Sonia’s apparent lack of faith in him.

_Cute_, Beth thinks, finishing off her coffee and setting the cup in the sink. She looks out the kitchen window onto the street. Sonia and Felicia should be here any minute to drop off the kids. 

“Yes, _a_ kid,” Beth agrees. “Sonia’s leaving us with _three_ kids, one of which is a baby. Four, really, since Marcus will be here, too.” Thankfully, her own bunch is still on a summer camping trip with Dean until next week.

“Like I ain’t handle your whole brood all the time,” Rio gripes, stabbing his fork into his omelet. 

Beth just hums, walking over to Rio and planting a kiss on his cheek. Yes, Rio has spent entire days caring for the five kids alone in the last three months since they bought a house and started living together—he’s even done it many times!—but Beth knows it’s different when the youngest of the bunch can, even if it’s through tears, explain in words what the problem is. Sonia’s eldest is just a little bit older than Jane and Marcus, but Camila is three and a half and Graciela’s not quite a year. What Rio thinks will be an average Saturday is going to be a week straight of what Beth’s life was like seven years ago: pure chaos. 

* * *

“Thanks again—we appreciate it so much,” Felicia says, handing over the diaper bag and backpacks for both Julián and Camila to Beth. Julián has already burst past them and ran upstairs to find Marcus. 

“Of course—you two need a vacation!” Beth says.

“Kinda sounds like I didn’t have a choice,” Rio says as Sonia passes over Gracie. Rio presses his lips to the baby’s brow, though, and instead of reprimanding her brother, Sonia coos. 

“Preciosos.”

“I’m gonna grab the car seats,” Felicia says, pointing back to the driveway. 

“So, do you have some instructions for us?” Beth asks, scooping Cam up onto her hip. 

“Yes,” Sonia says, starting to dig through her purse and finding a small notebook. “Everything’s in here—”

“Instructions?” Rio asks, brows knit. “For what? We done this before, So-So. We got five between us, ‘member?” 

“_Rio_,” Beth hisses. 

Sonia just smiles and tuts. “Oh, Chris. I know that _you_ had a perfect angel child bestowed on you by the heavens—and that _this_ isn’t going to be like that.”

Rio gapes as Felicia reappears and sets the car seat at his feet. “Just gonna grab the pack ‘n play and the kids’ toys and then we should be good.”

“We got toys!” Rio calls, covering Gracie’s eat that’s close to his mouth, but Felicia just waves her hand at him dismissively. 

“Okay, so Cam can’t sleep without Mr. Hippo, and Julián’s going to pretend he’ll be alright, but he’ll wake up and have a whole thing if you don’t put his nightlight in—just do it discreetly and don’t say anything, okay?” Sonia says, going over the first few points in the notebook with Beth. “Gracie co-sleeps with us. She’ll nap in the pack ‘n play, so you could try getting her to sleep in it overnight but—I’m not hopeful.” 

“That’s totally fine,” Beth says at the same time that Rio says, “Nuh.”

Turning the page, Sonia says, “These are all the things the kids won’t eat—”

“They’ll eat what we eat,” Rio says, and Beth looks at him, amusement tugging at the corner of her mouth. He hasn’t even been successful yet trying that with her kids. 

Sonia just keeps talking, ignoring him. “And here’s numbers you might need—doctor, dentist, the number to our hotel and—” 

“Dentist? We got ‘em for a week. They got an appointment or somethin’?”

“You never know what can happen,” Beth says as Cam starts getting fussy in her arms, reaching back for her mother.

“I got your cell, Sonia. We got it,” Rio says.

Julián’s called back down and there are hugs and kisses—one round, then another—and the girls start realizing that something’s different, that this is a goodbye of sorts, and both of them are crying before the door closes.

The baby has sort of a wail going on, and Cam’s cries turn into screams before long. Julián, who has already disappeared back upstairs, yells from the landing, “Shut UP, babies!” 

“This is going to be fun,” Beth says, rocking back and forth to try and soothe Cam. She whispers into Cam’s ear, “Shh, shh, it’s okay, sweetie.” 

Rio’s patting at Gracie’s back, bouncing her on his hip a little, and he gives Beth a look like he’s personally offended at her underestimation of him. 

* * *

The first several days _are_ tough, lots of tears and bad dreams and fussy eating—but it’s nothing compared to the fourth day, when, in addition to all of that, Marcus has to get stitches in his lip. Marcus’s scream echoed through the house after Beth had just been drenched by a particularly terrorizing splash of Cam’s in the bath (the result of a _very_ messy lunch tantrum) and Rio had just gotten the baby down for a nap (which was promptly unraveled when Gracie awoke with her own scream). Apparently, Marcus had agreed to a wrestling match between him and Julián that ended with Marcus falling and catching his mouth on the corner of the coffee table. It’d been a disaster rounding the kids up to take them all to the emergency room. 

The day’s not over until it’s late, past two am, when Gracie has finally worn herself out and fallen asleep between them on the bed. 

“You look tired,” Beth whispers.

“Fuckin’ exhausted.” Rio rubs at his eyes. 

“You ready to admit you were maybe wrong?” Beth asks, grinning. 

Rio runs a hand across his cropped hair. “Ain’t it good enough to know you was right? You gotta gloat, too?”

“Of course,” Beth says, but she reaches over to cup Rio’s face gently, swiping her thumb across his cheekbone.

Rio puts his hand over hers. “Kinda wishing there wasn’t a baby in this bed right now, ma.”

Beth smiles but doesn’t say anything.

“You know, there’s a perfectly good shower just twenty feet away,” Rio says, voice raspy. “Miss you, mama.”

It’s the longest they haven’t had their hands on each other since they’ve moved in. 

Very carefully, Beth leans over to kiss him chastely above Gracie’s head. She pulls away and presses her forehead against Rio’s. “You really want to try and move her into the pack ‘n play?”

“No,” Rio groans. 

“Well, then let’s get some sleep. We’ve got to do this all again tomorrow.” 

* * *

“That’s just adorable,” Beth says, snapping a photo of Rio sitting awkwardly at a children’s table wearing a princess crown and getting “served tea” by Camila. Beth starts tapping buttons on her phone.

“Who you sendin’ that to?” Rio asks.

“Your boys,” Beth deadpans, and Rio’s eyes flash. “Just kidding—although this is maybe good collateral.”

“Hmph.”

“Drink!” Cam demands.

Rio takes a pretend sip and starts to say, “Mmm, it’s goo—”

“No, Tío!” Cam screeches. She puts her little hands around Rio’s and pries his pinky off the teacup. “Like this!”

“Damn, ‘_scuse_ me,” Rio says, shooting a look at Beth like, _Is she f’real?_

“I mean, it really is the proper way.” Beth shrugs, smiling. Her phone beeps. 

“Who’s that?” Rio asks. 

“Your sister. I sent her the photo.”

“What’d she say?”

“That you’re a good tío. And that Cam likes getting her nails painted, too, if she gets bored of tea time.” 

Cam whips around to look at Beth, and Rio’s eyes widen. “Nails?”

“Yeah,” Beth encourages. “Do you want Tío to paint them for you?”

“Nails!” Cam holds out her hands to Rio, showing off her fingernails. 

Rio shoots daggers at Beth, but he just smiles at Cam. “A’ight. Let’s do this thing.”

* * *

By the last night, there’s some semblance of normalcy. A semi-routine, even. Gracie falls asleep before midnight, which feels something like a miracle.

“Sonia’s right. You _are_ a good tío,” Beth whispers in the darkness. Just today he had played princesses with Camila—or rather, he had played her lowly servant while she’d strutted around pointing her bejeweled plastic staff at things, making demands of him. 

Rio nods once, a lazy smile on his lips that Beth can’t see. 

“Can’t believe you let that little girl order you around like that.”

“Made the mistake of tellin’ her she didn’t have to be no princess—she could be the boss if she wanted. So she became the Queen.”

“Ha,” Beth says. “Well, how can I get in on this? I’d like to be able to boss you around like that.”

“Like you ain’t have me wrapped around your li’l finger already.”

Beth grins. “You’re a good dad, too,” she says, playing with her pillowcase, thinking of all the ways she’s gotten to witness Rio caring for and teaching Marcus. It makes her heart clench. 

“You a good mom,” Rio says, and she sucks in a breath, because while she _knows_ this, it’s not like—it’s not like Dean had ever said it about anything besides her ability to make animal faces out of sandwiches. “Couldn’t have done this week without you, darlin’.”

They sit in the dark silence for a minute until Beth says, almost surprising herself as much as Rio, “Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we’d—if we’d had a baby together?” 

She feels Rio freeze beside her in the bed. “We got five already, mama,” he says slowly, like he’s trying to tread carefully. 

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Beth says quickly, shaking her head. “I don’t want—I’m done.” 

“Okay…” Rio lets out a breath of relief. 

“It’s just taking care of babies with you—it’s been… it’s been nice.” She swallows. “It’s not like I would want things to be any different, you know. But it makes me wonder, I guess, if they had been. What it might be like.”

She’s not explaining it right—despite all the time she’d wasted with Dean, he’d given her her babies and she wouldn’t change a thing about them, not one thing. But as much as the week had stressed Rio out, he’d been… _great_. He’d changed diapers and he’d cleaned up the dishes for every meal she’d made and he’d helped at bath time. He’d been her _partner_. And that had never been something she’d truly felt like she’d had until now. It makes her curious. 

“I get it,” Rio says, and Beth’s eyebrows shoot up into her bangs—it still shocks her sometimes how he seems to get what she means when she can’t express herself in words. Rio curls a strand of her hair around his finger. “And… I think it woulda been nice. If things were different.” 

“Yeah,” Beth agrees, feeling warm and cozy under her blanket. 

They’re both quiet for a long while, both of them imagining something that would never be, something that makes them both a little wistful but not quite sad.

“I think what we got is pretty nice, too,” Rio finally says, breaking Beth’s reverie. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Rio nods, his bottom lip sort of jutting out in a way that would make Beth melt if she could see it. 

“Me too,” Beth whispers. “I’m glad—I’m glad my kids get you as a stepdad.”

They don’t use labels—there’d been a reason Beth had avoided repeating Sonia’s words exactly, the _girlfriend_ making her pause—so this is the first time she’s ever used this word for him. She feels her pulse quicken and she waits nervously for Rio to say something. 

He doesn’t though—suddenly she just feels his lips on her lips, and they are soft and tender and warm. Just… _nice_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of my first year of Brio prompts! Any upcoming prompts will be organized in a new set. Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to send me prompts on [Tumblr! I'm slow to getting them done, but I love the phrase/sentence prompts or just whatever ideas you'd love to see. :)](https://foxmagpie.tumblr.com/ask)


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